


all waiting is long

by shuofthewind



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1970s, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Autism, Autistic Hermione Granger, Bisexual Harry Potter (referenced), Black Hermione, Blood and Violence, British Indian James Potter, Chronic Illness, Dark Magic, Disability, F/M, First War with Voldemort, Hogwarts Was Never Safe, Horror Elements, I Mean Graphic Depictions of Violence, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Proud Welshman Remus J. Lupin, Queer Revolutions Win and JKR Can't Stop Us, Slow Burn, Trans People Belong In Hogwarts, Violence, War, When I Say Graphic Depictions of Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:33:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 149,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23291755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuofthewind/pseuds/shuofthewind
Summary: Witches and wizards are taught from their infancy tonever meddle with time.And Hermione doesn't mean to. After her brush with the Time Turner her third year, she has no desire to change the pastorto alter the future.But staying in Grimmauld Place leads her to discover new—and dangerously grey—magic. When Sirius Black falls through the Veil, Hermione disappears from her own world, pulled by ancient protective spells on the Black family that she picked up completely by accident. Now trapped in the year 1975, with no feasible way of getting home again and the world already forever altered by more things than her mere presence, Hermione must find her own way of coping—and a way to survive a war which already promises to be much darker, much longer, and much, much more dangerous than the one she left behind.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Lily Evans Potter, Hermione Granger & Remus Lupin, Hermione Granger & Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew & James Potter & Lily Evans Potter & Sirius Black, Hermione Granger/Remus Lupin, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew & James Potter & Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 230
Kudos: 443





	1. Traveler Traveled

She found the charm in a locked drawer.

Ever since Hermione Granger had arrived at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, she’d been set to work. In a way, it helped. The boys and Ginny complained about how ineffective it was to use household spells on the literal decades of grime that had crusted themselves into the walls—when you mixed filth with Dark magic, it seemed to solidify like amber and stick around—but Hermione was, at her heart, a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-do-it-yourself sort of person. When a _Scourgify_ Charm didn’t work, she’d go back downstairs and get a bucket of water to scour the damn mold into submission. It helped her escape the guilt.

Four weeks since she’d come to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Three since she’d last seen Professor Dumbledore. _It would be best,_ he’d said, in his gentle voice, _if you not tell Harry where you are or what you are doing, Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley. It would only put him in more danger. I’m afraid you must swear to it._ And she’d done it, she’d sworn, but she _hated it_. Harry’s letters were only getting more and more disconcerting. He was angry, that much was clear. Upset. They’d never kept things from him before, even if Ron had had to go through a telephone call and get hung up on by Vernon Dursley. And he must be miserable, all alone on Privet Drive, dealing with—everything.

 _He must be so awfully angry with us_ , she thought, and banged open one of the cabinets with the glass inlay, to show off all the foul, terrible Dark magic artifacts inside. _I would be. I’d be furious. Not hearing anything, not having any questions answered, four whole weeks after Cedric died and Harry saw it happen and Lord—_

She realized she was muttering aloud when Kreacher, skulking through the hallway, said “never shuts up, does it, Mistress, filthy, know-it-all Mudblood” and pattered away downstairs before she could turn around. She thought, for a moment, about going after him—to check on him, more than anything; nobody had seen Kreacher for days, if you didn’t count Fred and George, who regularly banged around at two or three or four o’clock in the morning and disturbed Kreacher undoing some of their cleaning—but decided against it. He wouldn’t appreciate her going after him; he might even think she was coming to attack him, after what he’d called her. She’d talk to him later, after this room was finished.

Or—well. She put her hands on her hips, and looked at the cabinet again. Finishing the room might be too optimistic. After she’d finished the _cabinet_ , at least.

It’d taken the better part of an hour to charm the thing open, and even then she’d had to ask for Sirius’s help to do it. _My mother,_ Sirius had said, darkly, and tried eight different unique locking and unlocking charms before one of them finally worked, and all the cabinets and drawers popped open with a resounding click. _Bloody—madwoman._ It’d been the same in every bedroom, guest or resident: a tall cabinet with doors made of glass, showing off all the rattling, squeaking, whirring, or disturbingly still bits and bobs of what Hermione presumed were Dark Objects. They certainly _felt_ foul enough when she picked them up and tossed them one by one into the bin she’d brought for this exact purpose. She was quite sure that if she hadn’t been wearing gloves a few of them would have leapt to life and hexed her silly. As it was Mrs. Weasley had charmed a handful of garbage bags not to melt or tear or rip no matter how much thrashing the artifacts were doing inside; once they were collected, Tonks and Professor Moody would heave the bags up with Levitation Charms, not wanting to touch them, and Apparate away somewhere to dispose of the nasty things. Probably the Ministry, since sometimes Mr. Weasley would take things that looked like Muggle-baiting traps, and one of the other members of the Order, Emmeline Vance, would be called in to check on anything particularly nasty. Hermione wasn’t entirely sure who Emmeline Vance was, aside from a Ministry employee. She suspected the woman was an Unspeakable, but nobody would talk about that. You weren’t, after all, supposed to speak about Unspeakables.

Hermione tossed a human skull that chittered and said “All right, mate, steady on!” into the bin, feeling only the slightest bit bad about treating someone’s bones that way, and kept on cleaning. This cabinet wasn’t nearly so filthy as some of the others, mostly because the sealing charm that had kept the doors closed hadn’t cracked like the one in the bedroom she and Ginny were sharing, but it was still filthy inside. It stank of cigar smoke. She had a theory that Sirius’s father had been a smoker, but she hadn’t asked Sirius. Sirius had a tendency to retreat to Buckbeak’s room and lock the door if anyone asked him questions about his family, and she didn’t want to trigger him into another bout of strained silence.

She dumped an enchanted domino set that looked as though it had blood runes etched into the side into the bin, and cast another _Scourgify_. Down the hall, there was a loud _crack_ of apparition, and Ginny—who was supposed to be cleaning another spare bedroom—shrieked and began to swear so loudly and creatively that the twins started laughing at her. Ron poked his head into the room, dust and grime smeared all over his freckled face.

“Lunch in ten, Hermione.”

“All right,” Hermione said, somewhat distracted, and dumped another set of artifacts into the bin. “Be there in a tick.”

Ron nodded, and clattered down the stairs. Down below, someone rang the doorbell, which set off Walburga’s portrait. No point in going down to the kitchen until she’d been silenced; she’d already been called Mudblood once today, and she didn’t need to repeat the experience. Hermione swept the last of the cabinet into the bin, and then started in on the drawers. It was a lot of papers, mostly—things she would have expected to find in a study, not in a bedroom, old wills for people long dead that she set aside for Sirius to look over when he was in a decent mood—and a few tins of what she thought were mints until she opened them to find a strange, oddly shiny mix of human molars, canine fangs, and teeth from what she thought was probably a goat.

She was just about to slam the last drawer shut when she heard it. There was a shifting, like something was moving about. Not of its own volition; just like the movement of the drawer had knocked something loose inside. When she peered in, she couldn’t see anything. Hermione fixed the gloves tighter on her hands, hoping the dragon leather would protect her from any nasty traps. It hadn’t helped Bill last week when he’d opened a secret compartment in the kitchen to get bitten by eight doxies at once, but then again, Bill was a cursebreaker and used to that kind of nonsense. When she felt around in the drawer, she couldn’t feel anything—there was no Disillusionment Charm anywhere that she could find—but there was a little fleck of a spot at the back of the drawer that seemed rougher than the rest of it. Hermione opened and closed the drawer again, listening to the shift, and then reached her whole arm in—almost up to the armpit; there was an Extension Charm here somewhere—and pushed hard at the rough spot at the back of the drawer.

The base of the drawer drew back with a snap. It was a false bottom, she realized; only a few centimeters deep, not enough to be obvious to the casual observer, and if Walburga Black hadn’t abruptly stopped screaming as she’d been closing the drawer, she probably would never have noticed it at all. There was what had to be at least a century or two of dust beneath the false bottom, and settled at the lower left-hand corner was a watch.

Hermione looked at it with a frown. It wasn’t quite a watch, exactly. It was more like the clock at the Weasleys, one with a hand for every member of the family and states of being marked around the edge instead of times. Only this one—she picked it up in her gloved hands, turned it over—had only one hand, and the whole thing was etched in runes. It more effectively looked like a blend between a compass and an open-faced pocket watch, with a needle inside that turned as she moved it around in her palm. There were no numbers or words etched around the edge, only a long, interlaced set of runes that seemed to glow softly when she looked at them for too long. They faded in and out as she watched, vanishing and rising in the burnished silver. She thought it might be Elder Futhark, but there was something off about the carvings that made the hair on her arms stand on end. There was another, smaller compass laid into the face of the watch, but that was still. Every gear that she could see was carved with runes, too. The needle was tipped with the rune _ansuz_.

Hermione put the charm back in the drawer, and looked at it. It didn’t feel—bad, exactly. Or maybe she’d been handling so many Dark Objects today that something that felt more Grey than anything was practically Light to her. They were supposed to be tossing out the _Dark_ objects, not the ambiguous ones. Still, there was something odd about the thing that she couldn’t quite shake off. As she turned it about with the tip of her wand, careful not to touch, the one moving arrow, marked with _ansuz_ , pointed unerringly towards the eastern wall, towards the hallway and other people in the house. It didn’t speak, it didn’t wriggle, and it certainly didn’t seem capable of hexing her. All the runes around the face of the watch that she _could_ read—fewer than she liked—were protective. _Eihwaz_ seemed to be the most prominent. Then _raidō_ , though not in a configuration she’d ever seen before, in conjunction with _ōþila_ , and then the rest—the rest she didn’t know.

She frowned. She’d been studying Ancient Runes for years now, was almost halfway through her fifth year textbook, and she still didn’t recognize these. Some of them _might_ have been Anglo-Saxon, others Ogham, but others seemed to be a mix of Egyptian hieroglyphs and archaic Sumerian as well, which was only taught at the NEWT level. Ancient runic alphabets didn’t like being mixed like that, she knew. Professor Babbling was very strict about keeping her students from mixing alphabets until they knew the ins and outs of every single one, since combining runes from different magical origins often had explosive results. There were three—maybe even four—different runic combinations on this thing, and when she cast a _Wingardium Leviosa_ and spun it in the air, she found an alchemical sigil carved on the back, engraved at the bottom with the words _Toujours Pur_. Which settled the matter—this was a Black family special, and with all the various runic alphabets it was saddled with, it could very well make the house explode if it was disposed of in the wrong way. She had no way of knowing what it did when she couldn’t even read a quarter of the inscriptions in the silver. She should put it back in the drawer and get Professor Moody and Emmeline to come and take a look at it when they had the chance.

Still—she hesitated. Her brain itched, and her fingers, the way they always did when her parents brought home a particularly fascinating puzzle. Hermione lowered the charm, but into her pocket, careful not to let it touch her bare skin. She was fairly certain both Professor Moody and Emmeline would be at dinner that evening; there was an Order meeting tonight, and they were both obligated to show up. She could ask them before they left.

As luck or fate or _something_ would have it, though, she didn’t get the chance to ask Professor Moody that night. Harry turned up, as furious as she’d anticipated, and the watch in her pocket completely slipped her mind until the next morning, when she slung her robes on over her jeans and striped sweater and felt the lump of it in her pocket. It stayed there, ominously unmoving, until the next time Professor Moody turned up at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, at which point she turned it over to him for inspection. Sirius watched her do it, his sharp grey eyes fixed on the thing as she Levitated it from her pocket to the tabletop for Professor Moody to poke at, but he didn’t say anything. She had the feeling Sirius wouldn’t have been particularly disturbed if someone lit Number Twelve on fire and burned the whole thing to the bloody ground.

She’d almost forgotten about the thing all over again when Professor Moody and Emmeline Vance turned up at the next Order meeting, and gave it back to her. “It’s harmless, I think,” said Emmeline, her mouth full of beef stew and carrots, and Sirius snorted.

“Nothing my family made is harmless.”

“None of the spells on that thing are actively _harmful_ , anyway,” Emmeline said, serenely ignoring Sirius’s tone. He’d been growing increasingly sour and snappish the closer it came to the start of term, and everyone was learning to ignore it. “There’s definitely magic in it, but it seems more like something to keep track of all the scions of the Black family than anything else. See, here—” She set it on the table, and moved it back and forth, and no matter what, the arrow inscribed with _ansuz_ pointed unerringly towards Sirius. “It’s probably been hidden in that drawer for ages and everyone’s forgotten about it.”

“How old is it?”

“Hard to say.” Emmeline tapped the end of her spoon against her teeth. “How old is the Black family?”

“Founded in the year 1138,” said Hermione promptly. Sirius’s lips drew back from his still-yellowed teeth.

“ _Toujours Pur_.”

“Maybe not _that_ old,” said Emmeline, “but certainly close. I’m not good with antiquities. The dating spell I used said it was eight hundred years old or so, at least. It’s not dangerous, whatever it is. Whatever spells were laid on it are probably completely deteriorated, at this point; I could only get so much out of the diagnostics.”

Hermione, her grip loosening on her spoon, looked at the thing. It sat, without comment, in front of her on the rough-hewn dining table. Next to her, Harry was moody again; he was prodding at his beef stew with his spoon and not listening to a word anyone was saying. Ron was eating the way he always did—quickly and with gusto—while talking to Fred and George about doxy venom.

“The runes I can translate are all protective, if that helps,” said Emmeline, and Hermione jumped. “What few spells _are_ still active are all protective as well, and the most important thing is that there’s no magic on it primed directly against Muggles or Muggleborns. It seems to be a defensive charm of some kind, and only when it’s activated. It can’t hurt anybody.”

Hermione hesitated, and looked at Sirius.

“If you want it,” Sirius said, correctly reading her face, “go ahead. I don’t give a damn.”

Hermione darted another little look at Sirius, but it was clear he had no further interest in the matter, instead dipping his head to say something quiet into Harry’s ear. Trying to get him to eat, most likely. Emmeline spooned up more stew, and swallowed it, thoughtfully.

“I’d take it to Professor Babbling,” she said. “She’s much better at runic combinations than me. She might be able to tell you what the charm does in more detail. Or you could make it a project. Try to work it out yourself.” 

“Yeah?”

“The runic combinations are interesting,” said Emmeline, smiling a little. “I’ve not seen archaic Sumerian combined with Ogham in a long time. The art was lost around the sixteenth century. If you were able to unravel some of the runic combinations and translate them, you’d have a very interesting topic to write a paper on. I’m sure there are more than a few academic journals that would be interested in a student who worked out how to lay the alphabets alongside each other again. If you’re ambitious you could even make it into a mastery project, post-NEWT. If you’re inclined that way, of course.”

Hermione picked up the charm, and turned it over in her hands. It was cool to the touch, and silent, despite the little shifting arm inside. A project, maybe—she could talk Professor Babbling into giving her extra credit, she was fairly certain, especially with something so very old and delicate as this. She’d have to teach herself three new runic alphabets—her heart beat a little faster at the thought—and probably would need another time-turner to devote the amount of energy to the charm that it deserved, but she _could_. She’d talk to Professor McGonagall about it, see if she thought it was reasonable to do during her OWL year.

She tucked it into her pocket, and finished her stew with a secret smile on her face.

.

.

.

The watch—charm, Emmeline had called it—became her side project.

It wasn’t like she didn’t have _enough_ to do, but still: with Harry in a semi-permanent foul mood, Umbridge destroying everything that Hogwarts stood for, Dumbledore’s Army, and OWLs creeping up on the horizon, she spent what little free time she still had not mopping up Harry’s upsets, fixing Ron’s essays, or finishing her near-literal mountains of homework studying the charm. She spent most of her weekends on it, going through old textbooks from the library—not only about the extra alphabets she now had to learn, but also what little history was available about complex runic enchantments like this one. That meant getting into the Restricted Section, but unlike second year, no professor had to be bribed into signing her permission slip.

“Most inter-runic charms like this get destroyed in the making of the object,” Professor Babbling had said, when Hermione had shown her the charm after the first Ancient Runes class of the year. “There’s a complex enchantment built into the thing, but I think your friend is right; nothing dangerous about it. See what you can do with it. I’ll sign whatever you need to access resources in the Restricted Section. It might be a little advanced, but I trust you.”

“Thank you, Professor.”

“Be prepared for a long haul, though,” said Professor Babbling, as Hermione slipped the charm back into her pocket. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Hermione knew, logically, that it would take a while to unravel the charm’s secrets. But when the Halloween feast came and went and she was still struggling with the most basic building blocks of the runic enchantments, though, she grew frustrated. The thing simply _would not be translated_. None of the runic configurations made any kind of sense. Even beyond inspecting the runes—which in and of itself took some doing, as she spent the whole of September and October teaching herself Ogham and Sumerian to try and determine whether the marks on the rim of the watch meant _protection_ or _endurance_ , _resurrection_ or _continuance_ —it was layered with so many smaller concealment charms that she couldn’t read half the runes carved on its surface. They moved, if she stared at it for too long; shifting, changing shape. It weighed on her. More like a complex maths problem than anything; a puzzle she could not solve.

She started keeping it on her. It gave her something that was all cold logic to focus on when the world was going to hell, and she appreciated it. The little charm became something, like her wand, that simply lived in the pocket of her cloak, or on her bedside table. She even wrote Sirius a few times to ask if he still had any books on runes in the Grimmauld Place library, and he sent back a massive pile of books that had been _marked for the bonfire if you hadn’t asked for them, kitten_. (This made Hermione frown, but of course, it was Sirius’s library, and he could do what he liked with it; she simply didn’t like the idea of burning books in vengeance for his family’s allegiances.)

“It’s a pureblood family thing,” Ron said, when he caught her for the eight-thousandth time pouring over the charm with all her books on Ancient Runes open in front of her on the floor of the Gryffindor common room. “Half of it’s probably sealed with the Black family magic. You won’t be able to unlock it.”

“Thank you for your opinion, Ronald,” said Hermione, a bit more snottily than she should have, but Ron had forgotten his rounds the night before _again_ and she was not best pleased with him at that moment. Harry was out somewhere, probably moping about Cho. “I’ll be sure to keep it in mind.”

Ron scoffed at her, looking sour, and turned back to the Herbology essay he should have done three weeks ago as Hermione made another notation in the book of Ogham runes with her quill.

The most irritating thing was that Ron was probably right. Pureblood family magic had its own locks and keys that one could only access if you were _of_ that blood; it was why Sirius could unlock the cabinets without much trouble, but even Professor Moody would have trouble undoing the charms on the Boggart-filled desk in the study at Grimmauld Place. She collected a handful of books on family magic—all written in broad descriptions, obviously; no living pureblood family would let their family secrets be published, especially not the nitty-gritty detail she needed to unlock the secrets of the charm—and found somewhat to her distaste that it was mostly to do with blood magic. At least a few of the runes had probably been inscribed with Black blood, and that explained quite neatly why it would not activate for her, or even show its purpose. Whatever it did, it likely would not activate unless someone with a Black-dominant bloodline put a few drops of blood on one of the runes. And _that_ , she thought, was certainly not happening, not until she found out a little more about the thing. The last thing they needed was Sirius setting off some kind of anti-Black bombshell in the middle of Grimmauld Place.

She tried her own blood, out of curiosity—despite her slight revulsion of the concept, there was no general harm in blood magic, just the possibility it could be used wrongly, though she deliberately did _not_ mention to Ron that she’d tried it; blood magic was hailed as Dark for a reason—but when she pricked her finger and let three drops fall on the glass of the compass, it just sank in and stayed there. Probably because she was Muggleborn, she thought, and put a sticking plaster on her forefinger. Nothing else for it.

It wasn't an artifact like Tom Riddle's diary. That, at least, she was sure of. It didn't speak to her or haunt her if she didn't think about it for a while. Half the runes still wouldn't reveal themselves to her, no matter what she tried. She wound up asking Sirius about it once over Christmas, but all he did was roll his eyes. “It's a Black family heirloom,” he said, when she pressed. “There are too many of them as it is. Even if it isn't Dark, it can't be good. Better off if you just toss it in the fire and forget about it, kitten.”

Hermione frowned, and kept the charm in her pocket. She meant to ask him about it at a later date, when he was in a better mood, but he was so irritable all through the latter half of the Christmas holiday that she didn't dare bring it up again. If she was fully honest with herself, she was hesitant to press the matter with Mr. Weasley still so weak after the snakebite. Harry was tetchy enough as it was, and she didn't need Ron snarling at her about _that bloody watch, Hermione_ on top of it all.

The charm became third tier after the DA exploded. OWLs distracted her, too, and Grawp. It lived in her pocket for most of spring term, and when she needed a break from revising, she turned it over and over into hands. It was a soothing weight, but it didn't weigh on her, exactly. She could not emphasize enough how little she thought about the charm, after Christmas. She forgot it was there, even, through Easter, through all her OWLs. She forgot it was there, even as Harry fell out of his chair, howling; even as he stammered about Sirius; even that night, as they went out to the Forest with Umbridge. She forgot it was there as she mounted a thestral she couldn't see, outside of shifting the thing to keep it from jamming into her leg. It was just something she kept in her pocket.

Until the Department of Mysteries.

Hermione didn't remember much of the Department of Mysteries. She remembered the doors, and the spinning, whirligig Xs she left on them. She remembered doors that would not open; brains in a tank; a bell jar with a beautiful hummingbird inside. She remembered the sudden shock of _something_ in her chest when the curse the masked Death Eater threw hit home.

She was unconscious for a while. Someone must have carried her. When she opened her eyes, they were in a different room. Somewhere close by, there was screaming. Spells. A bright light rose and died against the doorway, the way lights filtered through a window in a street full of police cars. Blue and orange. Red. Green.

The green made her sick.

Hermione rolled into her knees. Something was very wrong. She coughed, and blood spattered the floor. Her insides were—something was wrong. Something was _wrong_. She couldn't breathe right. Her heartbeat seemed too loud, and uneven. When she touched her pocket, her wand was gone. _Where’s my wand?_ Gone. Stupid question to ask.

“Hermione,” said a voice—Luna, she thought. When she turned her head, her eyes ached. Luna was there, white as a sheet with blood dribbling from her nose. So was Ginny, sitting on the floor with one leg outstretched. Ron was unconscious. Hermione opened her mouth and gagged on blood.

“Harry and Neville ran,” said Luna. “In there.” She pointed at the door. “Neville borrowed your wand.”

“Ron,” said Hermione. There was blood on her teeth. It was a singularly unpleasant sensation. “Is Ron—”

“Ron had a tangle with some errant thoughts,” said Luna, and Hermione would have been confused if not for the muck of—something lying beside Ron’s head. It looked as if someone had shoved a grenade inside a brain. Luna patted Ron’s shoulder gently, not looking away from Hermione. “Ginny—”

“Just my ankle,” said Ginny, in a skeletal-thin voice. “It’s fine.”

“It’s broken,” said Luna at the same time. “You shouldn’t move, Hermione—” 

But Hermione had already heaved herself up, clutching at the door frame. She could see into another room from here. When she looked back, Luna waved at her.

“Go. We'll follow you.”

Hermione nodded. There was something dribbling from her lips, and she refused to consider what it was.

Three steps, and she saw it. The room with an arch. There were spells. Bright lights driving into her head. She was at the top of a set of stairs down to the dais, and down at the base there were ten Death Eaters, and more— _Sirius_ , she thought, and her knees gave out as she slid to the floor. _Professor Lupin._ There was a prone form on the floor with vibrant pink hair that could be no one but Tonks. Professor Moody was bending over her. There was no mistaking that cane. And— _Dumbledore._

 _Safe_ , she thought. Hermione gagged, and only then realized her mouth was full of blood. _We're safe._

“Come on,” said Sirius, in a loud, laughing voice, “you can do better than that—”

She felt it as if the spell hit her own chest. Bellatrix's casting was silent, but the color was red— _Stupefy_ , maybe. It hit him hard, hard enough that it knocked him off his feet. The veil fluttered, and even at this distance she could see that it seemed to part for him. Seemed to swallow him.

Sirius fell, and in her pocket, something clicked.

She heard Harry's shout in the same moment the light flared. An alchemical circle, but it was too bright, she could only make out the symbols for Saturn and the element of mercury before something bit into her chest. She choked. Blood, and pain, and the light was too bright, it was blinding, she couldn't see, and her bones were on fire, her skin, _let it end let it end let it end—_

Something touched her cheek, a whisper—

The world went dark.

.

.

.

_Línan er yfir, línan er hafin._

Hermione breathed.

She was in darkness. She could not remember how she'd come to be there, or how long she had rested in the balance. There was simply darkness, and herself within it, suspended in the warm dark.

_Línan er yfir, línan er hafin._

She could not remember first hearing the voice, but she wasn't sure she was _hearing_ it at all. It seemed to simply be there, vibrating in her head. She wondered, for a moment, if she had ears, but when she reached up she had hands, and when she cupped her hands over her ears they were certainly there. So was her hair, which was, oddly, comforting.

_Línan er yfir, línan er hafin._

“Hello?” said Hermione. She rested a hand to her chest, and could not taste blood anymore. She supposed—with a faint sort of distaste—that she might have died. The last thing she remembered was light, after all. Isn't that what people usually saw?

_That's the brain having one last synaptic explosion before expiring, Hermione. What you saw was magic. Alchemy and family magic combined, most likely. Don't be ridiculous._

Her wand was still nowhere to be found. Somehow this did not disturb her. Hermione took a step, and then another, but the darkness around her seemed to swallow all sound. Aside from the voice, curling through the dark, there was nothing. Perhaps only the rustling of feathers.

“Hello?”

 _Ravens._ This was magic. She was not in the least bit stupid, it was obvious this was magic, but it was not, she thought, something done by Death Eaters. It did not feel like Dark magic at all, but nor did it feel _Light_ exactly. It seemed to simply exist in a way that air existed, the high pure air you only found on mountain peaks. She was dizzy with it.

_Línan er yfir, línan er hafin._

“Be rude, then,” said Hermione, in a voice that shook more than it should have. Her chest started to ache, but at a distance, raw and echoing. “I don't speak Old Norse.”

This was not strictly true—she spoke a _little_ , mostly from translation in Ancient Runes—but certainly not enough to understand the conjugation this person was using. This woman, Hermione thought. The voice seemed to have no gender, but something about it pushed at her.

“You need to take me back,” said Hermione. “I have—friends—I need to go help them, you have to take me back.”

Stars. Points of light in the dark. She found Aquila, Ursa Major, Scorpio. Draco. The Dog Star made something clench tight in her chest, for reasons she couldn't recall. She smoothed her hands over her robes. It occurred to her that here in the dark, she didn't need them—she couldn’t even see herself, so she doubted anyone would be able to see her, regardless of clothes—but she had them, and they were good for her nerves. The darkness seemed to swirl. This time, when she took a step, it echoed, and around her there was a rustling, as if of many wings. Things were moving out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned, there was nothing to see.

“ _Alle veje ligger åbne for dig_ ,” said a voice. It was a voice, this time. Something she could hear. When she turned, a woman stood there with a face that Hermione did not know. It seemed to shift and change, like Tonks’ metamorphmagery, but—different. Less like a person changing flesh and bone, and more like a ghost struggling to hold onto the memory of shape. Unlike a ghost, she was in brilliant technicolor; black hair and grey eyes and a mouth that went from thin to plush to crooked as she spoke. “ _Rejsende, alle veje ligger åbne._ ”

_Línan er yfir, línan er hafin._

“I don't know what you're saying,” said Hermione. She clutched at her robes, and found a hard, warm lump in her pocket, a lump that went hot as blood when she touched it with her bare hands. “I don't know where I am. Take me back.”

“ _Alle veje ligger åbne_ ,” said the woman, and her hair moved. Ravens’ wings rustled. “ _Du vil gå dertil hvor der er brug for dig_.”

“ _Take me back_ ,” Hermione said. “I need to help Harry, I need to help Sirius—”

“ _Línan er yfir,_ ” said the woman, and reached out with her hand. Her fingers changed as she moved, from long and slender to short and thick to the fingers of a very small child. She touched Hermione's forehead, then her breastbone. “ _Línan er hafin._ ”

Blood bubbled on her lips. It tasted sweet. “Stop,” said Hermione, but the woman did not. Her face morphed to the beak of a raven—she was growing feathers—

“ _Línan er hafin_ ,” she said, and with a great rush of wings, Hermione woke up.

She was in a hospital bed. As she blinked, slowly, the light changed. She had the vaguest notion of time passing, mostly due to the color of the light, but it took a while for her mind to fully process it. She’d blink, and the ward would change from bright to dim. Once, she saw a woman with bright blue hair standing beside her bed, and thought, muzzily, that Tonks had survived. That was good. Her very bones seemed to ache when she moved, but after a while, she started to get frustrated.

 _I will be awake,_ she told herself, the next time she opened her eyes. _I have to wake up. They’re probably worried, all of them_.

She blinked, and it was dark again. There was a figure seated beside her bed, a figure in garish purple robes and with long white hair. Hermione swallowed, and rasped at him. Professor Dumbledore was reading, but as soon as she croaked, he was up in a moment, finding a cup at her bedside table and conjuring a straw out of nowhere. “Slowly,” said Professor Dumbledore, but Hermione was too thirsty and her mouth still tasted of blood—she took three heaving gulps and then began to cough, which set her lungs and ribs on fire. It took probably a good ninety seconds before she could steady out again, before her voice eased.

“Professor,” said Hermione blearily. The half-moon spectacles glinted a little as Professor Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, and blinked at her, waving a hand to light the lamp at her bedside. “Professor Dumbledore, where’s—where’s Harry? And Ron? And—”

“My dear, lay back.” Professor Dumbledore put a hand to her shoulder, and pressed her back against the bed. In the same moment, the gnawing pain in her chest flared white-hot; a starburst; a supernova. Hermione closed her eyes and bit the inside of her cheek until it died away, and realized there were tears streaking back over her temples. Her cheeks warmed. “You’re in St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. You were discovered in the Department of Mysteries three nights ago in the Time Room, unconscious beneath a desk. It is a miracle that you survived.”

St. Mungo’s was obvious. It wasn’t the same ward as Mr. Weasley had been in, more like the Janus Thickey Ward, but it was still clearly a hospital. It smelled and looked nothing like the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts. _And_ it was closer to the Department of Mysteries than Hogwarts was. _I must have been more hurt than I thought_. Hermione took a deep breath through her nose, and forced her eyes back open. There might not have been sunlight, not anymore, but the lamp Professor Dumbledore had lit was stinging her eyes. _Three nights ago_. Three nights since they’d ridden thestrals to London, three nights since— “Professor Dumbledore—is Harry all right? And—and Ron? Ginny, Neville? Is everyone—”

“Take a deep breath,” said Professor Dumbledore, and Hermione obeyed. She couldn’t help it. Professor Dumbledore was the sort of man you just _obeyed_ , even if you weren’t a girl like Hermione who had obedience and rule-abiding respect bred into her very bones. She took a breath, and then another, and then waited until the ache in her chest died down a little bit before she looked at him again. He was giving her a very odd look, his eyebrows roosting in his hairline; concern had settled in around his nose and mouth, the way you’d nestle into an old, familiar blanket.

“You know me,” said Professor Dumbledore, as if this were a surprise.

“Of course, Professor,” said Hermione. “You’ve—you’ve been the headmaster for all the time I’ve been at Hogwarts. You’ve helped Harry since first year. Of course I know you.”

Professor Dumbledore looked at her for a moment longer. Then, slowly, he leaned back in his chair, rested his elbows to the arms of it, and steepled his fingers. Hermione watched him, and wondered. There was something cool, turning cold, in her chest; like a block of ice had slid down her throat and was now freezing her lungs. That, in tune with the ache from the Death Eater’s curse, made her palms sweat like anything.

“I see,” said Professor Dumbledore. He met her gaze for a long, unsettling moment—her head ached, as if something was pushing at her from the inside—and then nodded again. “I see, Miss Granger.”

He hesitated over it.

Hermione said, “Where’s Harry?”

Professor Dumbledore drew his wand from his sleeve, and waved it. In a moment, the sounds of the rest of the ward dampened; it was as if someone had drawn a curtain of static around them, tucking close around her hospital bed. She couldn’t hear anything, and she was sure nobody else could hear them. Professor Dumbledore stowed his wand away again, and said, “Forgive me, Miss Granger, but it seemed wise to keep things private. Just for now.”

“Of course,” said Hermione, as an icy fist clutched at her throat. She curled her hands tight around the fabric of her blankets. “Professor, I—”

“If you could wait,” said Professor Dumbledore, and her mouth snapped shut. “I understand that you are eager for answers, Miss Granger. But if you would give me just a few more moments of your time, and explain to me how you came to be in St. Mungo’s, I believe I can answer some, if not most, of your questions at the end of it.”

She did not like the look in his eyes. Tired, as if he had a great many things to weigh, all resting in his hands at once. Still, Hermione wet her lips, and began. She started with what Harry had seen during their OWL—the Department of Mysteries, Sirius, Lord Voldemort—and then told him about Umbridge, about Grawp, about the centaurs, the thestrals; Ron, Ginny, Luna, and Neville tagging along with them; their arrival in the cramped phone booth, the badges that read _Rescue Mission_ ; going through the doors in the Department of Mysteries, the Time Room, the room with the archway, the room with the door that would not open; their encounter with Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange. The rest was harder: the woman, the ravens, the magic. It sounded unbelievable even as she said it aloud, but Professor Dumbledore didn’t interrupt. The more she spoke, the hoarser her voice became; at three separate points Professor Dumbledore had to take down their privacy spell to call for a Healer to bring her more water. It was only once it was finished, and she trailed off rather lamely with _and then I woke up here_ , that Professor Dumbledore rubbed a hand over his mouth, down through his beard, and let out a long, steady breath.

“I see,” he said. Then: “May I see the charm you described?”

Hermione turned her head, and looked at the charm resting on her bedside table. Professor Dumbledore said “Ah” in a delicate voice, and then Summoned it with a silent spell, turning the thing over and over between his fingers. It shimmered gold and silver, and it was thrumming, somehow, with magic; some of the runes were glowing, leaving starry spots on the insides of her eyelids as she blinked. Professor Dumbledore said “Ah,” again, in a somewhat more revolted voice this time, before turning it over to study the engraved sigil of the Blacks on the back of the compass. _Toujours Pur._ “I see.”

“But I don’t see,” Hermione burst out, and tried to sit up again. The muscles in her chest spasmed, and she flopped back onto the pillows, feeling furious with herself. “Where’s Harry? And Ron? And Sirius, was—did the Order—is everyone all right? Did I—”

 _Did I really see Sirius die?_ she thought, and then bit her tongue. She wasn’t a Seer. If they even existed. Besides, it had been a hallucination, that much was clear.

“So far as I am aware,” said Professor Dumbledore, looking at her with sharp eyes, “Sirius Black is alive and well and residing in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.”

“Then I was right,” Hermione said, and stared at the ceiling. “It _was_ a trap. For Harry.”

“My dear,” said Professor Dumbledore, and tucked the empty charm away into his pocket. “Would I be correct in calling you a Ravenclaw?”

The icy hand closed tighter around her throat.

“No, sir,” said Hermione in a tiny voice. “No, I’m—I’m a Gryffindor.”

“I see,” said Professor Dumbledore. Then: “What day were you born, Miss Granger?”

Hermione blinked at him, very slowly. The fist clenched tighter, and tighter. She had to swallow twice before she said, “The nineteenth of September, sir. 1979.”

Professor Dumbledore stroked his beard again, for a long, terrifying moment. His eyes, when he looked at her, had an immeasurable sort of sadness to them. He said, “My dear, today is the twentieth of June, 1975.”

Hermione blinked. She blinked again. The ache in her chest started to pound, louder and louder with the beat of her heart. It echoed in her ears, raw, unending, loud _noise_ that she could barely hear herself through. The buzz of the privacy spell ate through her words. “But—that’s not possible.”

Professor Dumbledore looked at her, sadly. He said nothing.

“Time-turners aren’t capable of sending people back in time more than five hours,” said Hermione. Her voice cracked. “I—I read everything I could on them when I—but I—it’s not—it’s not _possible_ —”

The Time Room. She’d been in the Time Room. She’d watched the Death Eater fall into the glass bell, watch his head shrink to that of an infant. But that had been time in a loop, time—time in a _loop_ , not time thrown to pieces like this— _1975—_ if it was 1975—

 _I’ve not been born_ , she thought, and darkness closed in. _Harry and Ron and—they’re not alive. They’re not people. They’re not—the timeline, I’m not supposed to be here, the timeline will go wrong, Professor Dumbledore knows—he knows—he saw—_

 _You must not be seen._ It was the first rule. It was the most important. _You must not be seen_. Meddling with time was the worst possible thing you could do. It would destroy _everything_. _You must not be seen, Miss Granger._

She’d told him—she’d told him—

The glint of half-moon spectacles filled her vision. Professor Dumbledore put a hand to her brow, and said, quite firmly, “ _Breathe_ , Miss Granger.”

She breathed. It was ragged, much too fast, and it made her _hurt_ , made tears leak out her eyes, but she breathed. _I am real_ , she told herself, and turned her face away from him. _I am real, I am real, I am real._

“If you’ll forgive me the liberty,” said Professor Dumbledore. His voice echoed, as if from a long distance. “The Department of Mysteries informed me of your arrival as soon as they became aware of it. They believed—and I must say, they were not wrong—that a Hogwarts student had broken in to the Ministry of Magic, and somehow found herself in the Time Room, a place where, logic dictates, she should not have been able to enter. However, this—illuminates things. Your predicament is—complex, but that is not to say that we cannot attempt to find a solution. But until then, you must _breathe_.”

That was sensible. That was logical. Cold hard logic was what she needed at that moment. She needed _logic_ , not panic. She clung to it, and tried hard to steady out.

“With your permission,” said Dumbledore, “I will teach you to siphon part of your memories of this incident into a form I can take with me to the Department. There, they will study it, and attempt to find an answer as to why you are here. Until then, I’m afraid you must remain in the hospital.”

 _Harry_ , she thought. _Ron_. But she bit her lip, hard enough to sting. “But—the rules—”

“The rules of time travel dictate that you must not be seen,” said Professor Dumbledore kindly. “Yes, I know. But at this point, you have only been seen by me, Healer Chatwicke, and one very startled Unspeakable, and I daresay that outside of healer-patient privilege and the rules of working in the Department of Mysteries, the only one who ought to be warned into keeping a secret is me. And I hope, Miss Granger, you can trust me to keep your secret, for now?”

His eyes twinkled, just a little. Hermione bit her lip, and then stopped herself. “Yes, Professor.”

Professor Dumbledore smiled, then. It was sad, but it was gentle, and he squeezed her hand tight. “Excellent, Miss Granger. Now—I believe Healer Chatwicke mentioned that you were found without a wand. If you’ll permit me—I’ve taken the liberty of bringing a spare, here. I’m not sure how well it will work for you, but it should be serviceable until we either return you to your proper place in the world or—find another solution. Now: extracting memories into a tangible form has a simple incantation, just—tricky to get hold of the first time. If you’ll observe?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am deliberately not translating the Norse/Icelandic. Please don't give it away if you can understand it. I promise Hermione will figure it out eventually and you'll know what it means. :3


	2. The Orbis Sanguis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW FOR: MEDICAL TRAUMA, BREAKING BONES, PANIC ATTACKS, GRIEF. Mentions of PTSD.
> 
> Also for oversimplified explanations of time/space/dimensions and their intersections. 
> 
> Also also I love Saul. Keep on shining, you heterochromatic diamond.

Hermione picked at the fabric of the hospital blanket, and huffed.

The staff at St. Mungo’s were brilliant, really. Well, Healer Chatwicke was. She didn’t have contact with anyone else, due to the potential of wrecking the timeline. Healer Chatwicke with her blue hair and tart opinions was the only one who came in and out of this ward, and she’d answer any question Hermione asked; even brought her issues of _The Daily Prophet_ if she requested it. So she wasn’t a _true_ prisoner. She was just—stuck.

The spell that she’d been struck with in the Department of Mysteries had liquefied her insides to the point of near-death. Healer Chatwicke wouldn’t give her much more detail than that, but since she had to take about ten different kinds of potion per day to keep her organs from dissolving back into mush, there was an awful purple scar that ran from the center of her breastbone down to the top of her stomach, and standing on her feet for more than ninety seconds at a time made her feel weak as the proverbial kitten, she couldn’t leave. And she desperately— _desperately_ —wanted to.

It had been three weeks—three long, terrible weeks—since her meeting with Professor Dumbledore. She wished Harry were here. She wished Ron were here, or Ginny, or Neville, or even Luna, with her odd but calm curiosity. She wished _anyone_ were here with her. Professor Dumbledore hadn’t said much during that meeting—the Unspeakables had no idea how she’d even arrived in the Department, he had no frame of reference—but she’d been stuck in bed for three weeks, and that meant she’d been thinking. Healer Chatwicke had by the end of the first week given in to all her badgering and brought her one of the only books on time magic she could get her hands on— _Time and Its Dissonance_ by Elwin Fawley. She’d read everything she could get her hands on in the Hogwarts library about time magic in third year, when she’d had a literal time-turner hanging around her neck, but the time-turner had been mainly powered by the Hour-Reversal Charm, and that itself had been restricted to five hours. Five hours, backwards or forwards. Three hundred minutes in total. No more, no less. Hermione shook out her newest copy of the _Prophet_ , marked _10 July 1975_ , and scowled at it. _Three hundred minutes._ If she wanted to calculate (and on the third day in hospital, she had), depending on how many leap years existed in this timeline, she’d outstretched that limit by roughly thirty-three thousand, two-hundred-eighty-eight times; a sheer impossibility even with the time magic in _her_ time. _The future_ , she told herself, firmly. She could get back there. She _had_ to. Harry needed her. Harry and Ron were alive, in their time. She was certain of it. For all that she had no _way_ to be certain, she just—knew.

She knew. That was all. If the ghost of Trelawney could stop sniggering at her in the back of her head, she could get on with her life, get well, and start figuring out a way to get back to _her_ time. The one where Harry and Ron needed her.

For now, though, she was stuck, because she couldn’t stand without a cane to help her.

“ _I mark the hours, every one_ ,” she said under her breath, and whacked her useless legs. “Yeah, right.”

“If you keep doing that, we’re going to have to heal your kneecaps as well as your insides,” said Healer Chatwicke, giving her a stern look. Healer Chatwicke looked a little like Princess Diana, if Princess Diana had blue hair and a large mole on the side of her nose. For a second, Hermione wondered if Princess Diana had even been born. No, she had—she did some quick calculations—she’d only be fourteen or fifteen years old. Younger than Hermione. “It’s bad enough that that bloody magical whosit you came through did so much rummaging about with your bones. You had to come back with Dark magic bouncing all your guts around like some kid playing stick-and-hoop.”

“Sorry,” said Hermione, and folded her hands primly in her lap.

Healer Chatwicke frowned, but collected her chart anyway, and did some diagnostic spells. Despite Hermione’s best efforts, she still couldn’t copy any of them. All the incantations were silent—probably, she thought, blushing a little when Healer Chatwicke cocked an eyebrow at her, to keep people like her from copying them and cutting themselves to pieces in at-home diagnoses—and the wand movements were incredibly complicated. Hermione had never really considered what she wanted to be, not seriously, and Healer had never made the list until Mr. Weasley’s hospitalization. She still wasn’t sure _now_ , but it was marching up her list of possibles faster by the day.

 _Wand_ , she told herself, and smoothed her blankets again. It would be the first thing she’d do, upon getting back to her own time. _Get my wand back from Neville._ Then: _rip Sirius Black’s head off_.

_If he’s alive._

_He’s alive_ , she told herself. He had to be alive. She didn’t know what that—veil—was in the Department of Mysteries, but clearly they were studying it. The Unspeakables would have a way to get him back out again. He was alive, and she could rip his fool head off for letting her play with something like the charm. And then she could tell Professor Babbling that it was—well, that it was—

_I still don’t know what the blasted thing is._

Nothing in any of the runes she’d been able to decipher had anything to do with time. She’d been looking for that. She had _experience_ with that; there had been some nights her third year where she’d lain awake for hours studying the runes that made up the time-turner, and none of them had been present on the charm. Maybe some of the inlaid runes, she thought, but time runes didn’t just _hide_ that way. And she’d lived with the time-turner around her neck for more than a year, if she factored in all the turn-backs she’d done. She _knew_ what time magic felt like, and the charm simply hadn’t had any. The thing was protective. It wasn’t a basis of travel, time-travel or otherwise.

 _Maybe this is its way of protecting me,_ she thought, and then shook her head. _What’s protective about flinging me twenty-one years into the past?_

“You’re doing it again,” said Healer Chatwicke absently, and Hermione realized with a blush that sparks were flying off her hair. She brushed at her frizzy hair frantically with both hands, ignoring the sting. It was magic, more than fire, and she’d not had such awful, uncontrollable reactions since she was _nine_. Something about what the charm had done had completely destroyed her ability to control her subconscious magic use. _You’re better than this_ , she told herself sternly. _Get yourself back under control, before you start levitating books like a firstie._

“Sorry.” 

Healer Chatwicke shrugged. “No fuss for me. The elves that do the washing get a bit tetchy if there are too many scorch-marks on the sheets, but considering this is St. Mungo’s, I suppose they’re used to it by now.”

Hermione bit her tongue rather than ask after the elves. Instead, she said, “Does this happen often?”

“Teenage girls with scrambled magic, scrambled insides, and scrambled timelines?” said Healer Chatwicke, and checked something off on her clipboard before casting another diagnostic spell. It was only after it was completed, and the light over Hermione’s legs had turned a delicate sky blue—much different from the previous few days, when the color had been deep rose—that she said, “Scrambled timelines, no. Scrambled magic and scrambled magic, yes. I’m used to odd stories, Miss Granger. This is the private side of the Accidental Magic ward, after all.”

“Mm,” said Hermione, watching the colors shift and change.

“You should be able to start taking muscle-strengtheners as of tomorrow,” said Healer Chatwicke. “So long as the Replenishment Potion and the Skele-Gro keep doing its work.”

Hermione groaned. Her legs had _just_ stopped pricking like needles were being plunged into every inch. “I still don’t understand why I need Skele-Gro. It’s not as though anything was broken.”

“Skele-Gro doesn’t just heal breaks,” said Healer Chatwicke, a little mysteriously. “However you came here, it did some damage to your bones. Though I can’t imagine it was very pleasant, however you came to us. Nothing in the Department of Mysteries is.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” said Hermione absently, and then flushed. She wasn’t supposed to know much about the Department of Mysteries. Healer Chatwicke rolled her eyes.

“Have you any _idea_ the sorts of injuries I see on Unspeakables?”

She walked off before Hermione could ask. Thinking of the bell jar, and the baby-headed Death Eater, Hermione wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

The spare wand Professor Dumbledore had brought was made of English oak, so far as she could tell. She could vaguely remember reading a book on wand-making her second year (in a breathlessly arrogant attempt to see if she could fix Ron’s broken wand for him) and from what little she could recall, English oak was perhaps the most amiable and supportive of the wand woods, most easily acclimated to someone that was not its true wielder. It didn’t exactly fight her, but it wasn’t _her_ wand, either. She wondered how Neville was doing with her wand. She wondered if they’d even realized she was gone yet, or if they thought she was dead. _What if they think I’m dead_? What if they had a funeral for her? What if they thought the Death Eaters had taken her? What if they thought she’d been flung through the locked door in the Department of Mysteries?

She gripped the oak wand in both hands, and made herself breathe. _I’ll be back at some point_ , she told herself. _There’s no point in panicking._ If they thought she was dead, she’d—well, she’d just—have to say sorry. And apologize for being so stupid.

“You really should see a mind healer,” said Healer Chatwicke, sternly. “I know you can’t exactly tell anyone, but—”

“I shouldn’t do any more damage to this timeline than I already have,” said Hermione. _And I can see a mind healer when I get home._ “I’m fine.”

The look Healer Chatwicke gave her said she patently did _not_ believe this, and honestly neither did Hermione. It sounded weak and wobbly, like Ginny did if she stood in the Grimmauld Place study for too long. _The magic—pulls_ , she’d told Hermione in a whisper, one night when they’d both been lying awake and unable to stop worrying about Dumbledore’s Army. _Makes me think of—Him._

She wondered if the wizarding world had a way to diagnose or treat post-traumatic stress disorder. She wondered if she needed it.

“Oh,” said Healer Chatwicke, and Hermione blinked and lowered the oak wand. Chatwicke was looking at a light above the door, which usually glowed a dim orange. As Hermione watched, the color flowed into a gentle, mossy green. “Visitors. I’ll be back in a tick.”

And with a soft _pop_ , she vanished. The only people given permission to Apparate within the confines of St. Mungo’s were Healers, she remembered. Not even Professor Dumbledore could manage it within the boundaries. Your magical signature had to be woven into the wards. Hermione set the oak wand with utmost gentleness on the bedside table, threaded her fingers through her still-sparking hair. If the visitors were who they _had_ to be, then she didn’t need to be spitting sparks all over the place.

“Ah,” said Professor Dumbledore, when the door opened. His robes were an eye-gashing pink today, his pointed hat decorated in dangling silver stars. The tips of his shoes curved back like an Ottoman Turk’s. Next to him was a man in all black, the hood of his long, heavy cloak drawn forward to hide his face. The only way she knew it was a man at all was his voice; when Healer Chatwicke said, “This is her,” he reared back.

“I don’t remember agreeing to seeing the girl _awake_ , Dumbledore.”

“Nonsense,” said Professor Dumbledore in a soft voice. “You’ll get much more sensible answers to your questions if you speak to her directly.”

“Dumbledore—”

Professor Dumbledore gripped the man’s elbow, and spun his wand again, in the same motion he’d used to cast the privacy spell around Hermione’s bed. Sure enough, the buzzing sound returned, like the humming of bees. After a moment or two of intense discussion, the privacy spell dropped, and Professor Dumbledore seemed grimly pleased with himself. The Unspeakable sighed, audibly.

“Miss Granger,” said Professor Dumbledore, and nodded to her. Hermione fluffed the ends of her hair in spite of herself, an old habit she thought she’d quit. “This is Unspeakable Croaker. Saul, this is Hermione Granger.”

Croaker said nothing for a time. He seemed to just be watching her, though Hermione could not make out his face in the dimness cast by his hood. She could feel his eyes, though. Her skin prickled. After a full thirty seconds of silence, he said, “Charmed,” in a sardonic sort of voice.

“Thank you,” squeaked Hermione.

“Mr. Croaker is the Unspeakable who found you in the Time Room, Miss Granger,” said Professor Dumbledore gently, and Hermione peeked at the Unspeakable with renewed interest. He’d moved closer to her bed, and had his wand drawn, forefinger tapping at the wood. “With your permission, he would like to cast a few diagnostic spells. And your permission as well, Healer Chatwicke; we do not wish to disturb Miss Granger’s recovery.” 

“Nothing haemological,” said Healer Chatwicke instantaneously. “Her blood and marrow are in a delicate place right now. We can’t disrupt that.”

“Nothing haemological,” said Unspeakable Croaker, and Healer Chatwicke relaxed just slightly. “My diagnostics are—somewhat different from yours, Healer Chatwicke. But before we begin--

“Unspeakable Croaker works in the Time Room, Miss Granger,” said Professor Dumbledore. He conjured a plush armchair out of nowhere, and settled into it, as if he was watching the television in his sitting room. Though somehow Hermione doubted that Professor Dumbledore had ever used a television. “He’s graciously agreed to review your case and has a number of theories he’d like to test.”

“What sort of theories,” said Hermione, looking at Croaker’s wand with some level of trepidation. It was short and thick, almost like Umbridge’s.

“Traces in your magic,” said Croaker, in—well, mostly a croak. “I’ve almost a handle on the charm Dumbledore claims brought you here. If it had any kind of impact on the magical confluence that brought you to this—year—” He sounded dubious. “—then these spells will reveal it. Once I know how it impacted you, I’ll know which of my theories is right.”

Still, Hermione hesitated.

“If it helps, Miss Granger,” said Professor Dumbledore gently, “I have the utmost faith in Unspeakable Croaker. He’s been working quite hard on your case this past month.”

Unspeakable Croaker snorted. “Only one they could ask,” he said. “After all, if you are what you say you are, then I’m the unlucky bastard who found you. They couldn’t ask anyone else without muddling things further.”

Healer Chatwicke made a noise like an angry cat.

“Unspeakable Croaker is a fantastically talented wizard and very good at his job,” said Professor Dumbledore, serene. He steepled his fingers and leaned back in his squishy armchair. “There is not another Unspeakable in the Department that I would prefer to have working on your case, Miss Granger.”

“And _you_ ,” said Croaker, displeased, “need to keep your nose _out_ of the Department of Mysteries, Dumbledore. You know the rules. You shouldn’t have told her that much.”

“As Miss Granger is the subject of your studies, I assume the usual rules regarding anonymity and silence do not apply.”

“To _her_ , maybe. The rest of you are strangers.”

Professor Dumbledore smiled, and said nothing.

“Right,” said Croaker. He looked back at Hermione. “This’ll tickle.”

It did not, in fact, tickle. It felt as though someone was reaching under her skin and peeling her magic up by the roots. It didn’t _hurt_ , exactly—more like when you had a tooth pulled and you’d been injected with anesthetic first. It felt _odd_ , and Hermione had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from wriggling as the spell swept over her skin, again and again. Through the loud hum of magic licking against her skin, she could hear Croaker chanting, a long, daunting string of syllables that certainly wasn’t classical Latinate magic. Whatever it was, it echoed. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Finally, it faded, and her skin glowed a bright mustard yellow. It did not disappear. Instead, it rippled against her skin like a shield, jerking out unevenly in patches as if someone was pinching and yanking with their fingertips.

Healer Chatwicke’s lips pursed. “I told you,” she said. “Her magic is still too unsteady to deal with this.”

“It’s fine,” said Croaker, and drew the charm from his pocket. He kept it in his left hand, his wand still raised in his right. At once, the mustard-colored light— _magic_ , Hermione thought, _my magic_ —began to rise in arches from her skin, rising and falling like ocean waves. “It’ll be set right in a minute. Besides, it’s better if it’s unstable. Makes it clearer what went wrong.”

“I hope you can put your galleons where your mouth is, Croaker. You could undo all the work I’ve done these past three weeks.”

“I’d never dare,” said Croaker, sardonic again.

Professor Dumbledore leaned forward, as if he was watching a particularly interesting film.

The second spell was delicate, all silver light and tinkling bells. It pressed against the yellow light on her skin. It was—cold, she thought. But not a bad sort of cold. More like the chill of a goblet of ice water. The same silver, she thought, as the charm. Whatever the light was doing, she couldn’t see any difference, but Croaker said, “Ah,” as if he’d noticed something particularly interesting. He spun his wand, switched hands—right to left, so that the charm was pressed to his wand—and the silver light lifted off her magic, swirled into a knot beside her on the bed. The light left spots on her eyes as it shifted, reformed. Grew wings.

“Well, that’s expected,” said Croaker, not to her but to the winged creature that’d taken up space on her knee. It was like a Patronus, but not—too physical. It had actual weight on her knee, made indents in the blanket where it dug in with its claws. “It’d be more helpful to tell me _how_.”

The creature croaked. Hermione realized it was a raven only in the split second before Croaker spun his wand again, and it dissolved back into silver light. 

“Right,” said Croaker. He yanked his hood back, exposing a shock of red hair that stuck out in every direction. Not Weasley red—it was too dark for that—but still startling. “Last one, Granger. Lay back. This one will be the worst.”

This one did not have any particular _glow_ to it, but—but something in the spell (all in Sumerian, something Hermione didn’t even know you could cast with anymore) weighed heavy on her chest. She struggled to take a breath, laid back on the bed as she was. It felt as though someone had sat on her sensitive ribs and clutched her lungs in both hands, to keep them from expanding. She choked, and the pressure increased, until, with a noise like a ringing gong, her magic pressed back into her skin. But it didn’t end. A blinding light grew in the air over her hospital bed, one that grew branches and lines like a tree, like a root system, silver and gold and blinding and _bright_ —she shut her eyes, but the image had already pressed itself into her mind—she clenched her fists, her bones aching—

The gong echoed again. The light dimmed. When she opened her eyes, everything had vanished. Her lungs ached with the pressure of breathing, but it was all gone, and she could do little more than just let her vision clear. 

In his chair, Professor Dumbledore sighed.

Croaker, his curly red hair flying every which way, lowered his wand.

“You right old bastard,” said Croaker without any heat, and Healer Chatwicke sucked in a breath. “You knew exactly what this was, didn’t you?”

“I suspected,” said Professor Dumbledore, in a quiet voice. “But I trust your awareness of these branches of magic much more than my own, Saul. I was never particularly accomplished in it.” 

Hermione looked from one of them to the other. “I’m—I’m sorry, but—” Her voice was high and nervous. “But what are you talking about?”

Croaker looked to Professor Dumbledore, just for a moment. Professor Dumbledore, though, had stood; he Vanished his cozy armchair, and slipped his wand back up his sleeve, stroking his long silver beard in silence. Healer Chatwicke folded her arms tight across her chest, and waited, one blue eyebrow arched.

“How much do you know of family magic, Miss Granger?” said Professor Dumbledore, after the silence spun too thin not to snap.

Hermione smoothed her shaking hands over the blankets. “Not much.” She wet her lips. “I’ve done some reading, but there—there isn’t much to read. Family magic is—private. It’s not like regular magic, not—personal. It’s—it’s built within the structure of the bloodline. And you can do rituals with it, but only within the family.”

“I thought you said she was intelligent, Dumbledore,” said Croaker, and Hermione bristled. Croaker seized the nearest wooden stool, dragged it around, and sat down, looking her in the eye. His eyes were mismatched, she realized. The left was brown, the other blue. “What is magic?”

 _Of all the egotistical little—_ She took a breath, and let it out. “Magic is hereditary. Wizardkind is born with the ability to do magic, cast spells, and brew potions, the same way Muggles are born with the ability to—to create technology. In a way it’s a symbiotic relationship; we need Muggles to create technology that our magic by its very nature cannot coexist with, but Muggles need us for protection against dark creatures and—and other things—that wizards are uniquely suited to combat. Magic is personalized, in that each witch or wizard has their own magical core, but it is communized, in that many witches and wizards can pool magic and band together to create greater enchantments or workings. It can be sealed off, such as when Muggleborn children choose not to attend Hogwarts, but it can never be taken away, not fully. Taking magic from a witch or a wizard would probably kill them, which suggests a link to a witch or wizard’s life. You cannot _remove_ magic from a witch, simply repress it, or coax it to fade away by natural means, such as aging or insanity.”

“Yes,” said Croaker, leaning forward, “but what _is_ magic?”

Hermione opened her mouth—and shut it again.

“Exactly.” Croaker’s eyes were gleaming. “Magic can be personal or familial—what quantifies the difference? If you examine the shifts between individual and family magic, or the difference between a singular casting and a coven’s mass working, how can you study it? For that matter, how can you confirm there is truly a difference between the magic used by wizardkind and the magic used by house elves? Or centaurs? Or unicorns? What is the _difference_ between personal and family magic?”

“Well,” said Hermione, and frowned. She scrubbed her thumb over her nose. “Well—we understand it’s different because—magic that works on other witches or wizards doesn’t work on house elves. House elves can Apparate through Anti-Apparition jinxes, and wizards can’t.”

“Why?”

She wasn’t sure at all what he was trying to get at, but she rubbed more fiercely at her nose, thinking hard. “…if there is no quantifiable difference, then….I suppose because we think it must be that way? We _think_ that house elf magic is different, and thus it is.”

Croaker leaned back in his chair. “At its deepest level,” he said, “we still do not know what magic actually is. It exists, within us, around us, but we do not know where it comes from. Some people worship it. Other people believe it is simply a quirk of genetics. But you have been in the Department of Mysteries, Miss Granger. There is magic in the inherent qualities of the world. In love and death. In time and space. Family has its own magic, as does solitude and grief and blood. The difference between familial magic and individual magic is not inherent in the _essence_ of that magic, but in how that magic is applied and considered by its _users_. Which is inherent in the case of—well, you.”

“So it was Sirius’s family magic, then,” she said. “That brought me here.”

Croaker seemed to have lost his voice. Instead, he found her wand hand, and gripped it in both of his, folding her fingers around something small and round and warm. It was the charm. But it was not the charm she remembered. There was a line of thin, shining gold around the face of it, and where there had been one arm in her time, now, there were eight. _Eight_. When she moved the charm, the arms moved with her, pointing unerringly in multiple directions at once. Four of them, including the one marked _ansuz_ , stayed unhesitatingly pointing northwest.

“How did you get these runes to wake up?” She turned the charm over, and eyed the alchemical circle, now laced through with Elder Futhark. “What spell did you use?”

“Nothing,” said Croaker. “It came to us that way. I’ve run every test I can on it, and I can tell you what I think it is, but without a Black, there’s no way to be absolutely sure.”

Hermione flipped the charm so it was face up once more. The arrows weren’t all the same. The longest was the one marked with _ansuz_ , narrow and sharp like a needle, but there were others; one of them, short and squat, marked _hagalaz_ ; another, longer but still somehow dull and boring, with _isaz_. Then _yr_ , from Younger Futhark; another, with the cuneiform _ur_ , dog, traced along its arm. The others were, to her, unreadable. One was completely unmarked.

“These,” said Croaker, using his wand to touch the glass face of the charm, “represent the surviving members of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. From what I can tell, the arrows point in their direction at all times. There’s no way to tell distance or explicit location, but if they move, so do the arrows.”

Hermione’s frown deepened. She’d guessed that much, but—“There are eight Blacks alive today?”

“Many more than that, my dear,” said Professor Dumbledore. “I believe the differentiation is that these eight still retain the _name_ of Black. From what I can tell, that means that these arrows represent Lord and Lady Black, their two sons; their brother, Cygnus; two of his three daughters, Bellatrix and Narcissa; and Alphard Black, an unmarried uncle.”

“But not—” 

She bit her tongue. She wasn’t sure what year Tonks had been born, and if Andromeda wasn’t a Black anymore, then— _maybe Tonks hasn’t been born yet?_ Even if Andromeda was married to Ted Tonks at this point? And what about Narcissa? Wasn’t she married to Lucius Malfoy yet?

“Even if you know of some Blacks not marked on this charm, it’s possible that the charm itself hasn’t fully recognized they are or are not members of the family.” Croaker shrugged. “It’s also possible that they haven’t yet been removed from the family magic, or that the thing is broken. Enchantments this old don’t always hold up well.”

“Obviously,” said Hermione, only-half under her breath. Looking at the charm, she wondered if the arrow marked with _hagalaz_ was supposed to represent Sirius’s mother.

“If I may,” said Professor Dumbledore. “Miss Granger—you said that in your—where you came from, how many arrows remained in the charm?”

“One.”

Croaker and Professor Dumbledore exchanged a look. Then Croaker swore, and rubbed one hand over his scruffy chin.

“Why is that important?” She curled her fingers tight around the charm. “If—if there’s more than one arrow, shouldn’t that mean the functions of the compass will be easier to understand?”

“Maybe if it didn’t belong to the _Blacks_ ,” said Croaker, but Professor Dumbledore waved him off.

“Miss Granger,” said Professor Dumbledore. “Speaking as we were of family magic, it is important to keep in mind that although family magic and personal magic are, inherently, the same, the rules regarding them are not. Family magic is regarded as private and precious, and each family—each pureblood family, at least—has its own way of relating and interrelating to the family magic bound into its blood. Similarly, each family magic has its own specific strengths and weaknesses. And each branch of family magic has its own—quirks. As it were.”

Hermione frowned. She thought of the woman in the dark, black hair and grey eyes and an ever-changing face. “You’re saying—family magic is _alive_?”

“It can present as such,” said Professor Dumbledore. “Whether it is because pureblood families have long-since treated their particular family magics as sentient, or because they have a natural sentience to them, is uncertain. The fact remains that each family which has lived long enough to accumulate and pool its own sort of family magic has its own concepts and rituals to preserve it. The Heir ritual is one of the most common; when an Heir is chosen to rise to the level of Lord or Lady of the family, it is typical for most to add a few drops of their blood to a particular object, to add their magic to the family’s and thus ensure its survival.”

“And that’s what this is?”

“No,” said Croaker. “Similar, but no. The _Orbis Sanguis_ is an object that allows for the tracking and protection of each full-blooded member of the family to which it is bound, via the family magic in which they all were contained. They were popular in the tenth and eleventh centuries as ways to preserve and protect families that were magical. Not for familial magic, but simply for survival. It was easier to find your relatives if you added their blood to a single device, and if activated, it could bring you to each member of the family in danger of death, to ensure the line’s survival.”

Hermione looked at the charm. _Walburga_ , she thought, looking at the squat arrow. Then: _Sirius’s father was named Orion, wasn’t he? And then Sirius, Regulus, Alphard, Narcissa, and—_

She thought of Bellatrix, Bellatrix who tore Alice and Frank Longbottoms’ minds apart, and shuddered.

“Which is where your memories come into play,” said Professor Dumbledore. “Forgive me, but I have taken the liberty of showing Unspeakable Croaker your memories, Miss Granger. It is his theory, and not mine, that we examine now.”

“You saw the Death Chamber,” said Croaker, bluntly.

“Death Chamber?”

Croaker scowled at Professor Dumbledore. “You didn’t tell her?”

“I am not an Unspeakable,” said Professor Dumbledore. “It was not my place.”

“Bastard,” said Croaker again, and continued. “What do you know about the Department of Mysteries?”

“You study the mysteries of the world,” said Hermione. “It’s in _Review of Ministerial Relevance._ Life, Death, Love, Thought, Time—”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Croaker, darting a look at Healer Chatwicke. “That room, with the Veil—that’s the Death Chamber. I don’t know what goes on in there, same as those Unspeakables who work in there have no clue what goes on in the Time Room. But that archway—it’s been in that room as long as the Ministry has existed. I don’t think anyone remembers whether the Arch was there first, or the Ministry. But that room is the Death Chamber, and you saw a man fall through the Veil.”

“The Veil between Life and Death,” said Hermione. Her throat closed. _Sirius. Oh, Sirius._ She hadn’t always _liked_ Sirius, hadn’t thought he was responsible enough or compassionate enough or—well— _sane_ enough to be what Harry needed, but—but he’d been good and brave and clever, and Harry had loved him. And he’d been her friend.

A tear dropped to the bedspread.

“If I may,” said Professor Dumbledore. He reached out, and tapped one long finger to the glass of the Orbis Sanguis. “The man you saw die—I believe he was the last of the Blacks. Was he not?”

Hermione nodded, and bent her head to hide her tears.

“Then the Orbis Sanguis attempted to take you to him,” said Professor Dumbledore. “To save his life. That is its purpose.”

“But there’s no traveling between Life and Death,” said Croaker. “Not that we know of. It’s been studied for centuries and no one’s found a way outside of _The_ _Tales of Beedle the Bard_ , and we all know those are simply fairy tales. So the Orbis Sanguis hit the Veil between Life and Death and rebounded. It couldn’t take you with it, and it couldn’t enter on its own. Not even family magic as old and as powerful as the Blacks’ could manage that.”

“Then it should have just—put me back where I came from, shouldn’t it? If the Orbis Sanguis isn’t a time-traveling device, then it should have just dropped it back where it found me, in the hallway outside the Death Chamber.” She wet her lips. “And—and if I was dropped back outside the Death Chamber, why did you find me in the Time Room? And _I_ put my blood on the thing, which should have been rejected, I’m no Black, no relation, I’m Muggleborn, I can’t possibly—”

“You did not travel through time, my dear,” said Professor Dumbledore.

Her heart was beating too fast. She could not breathe. “But Professor—”

“The Orbis Sanguis took you to the nearest Black that it could find,” Professor Dumbledore said, gently. “There were no Blacks living, not in your— _timeline_ is an inaccurate descriptor.”

Croaker scoffed. “You’re making it sound woolier than it is.”

“Then, by all means, Saul—” Professor Dumbledore gestured. “I bow to your expertise in this matter.”

“Right,” said Croaker. He waved his wand, and a line of golden light appeared, hovering over the end of Hermione’s hospital bed. “This,” said Croaker, “is how we perceive time. But time doesn’t work that way. In many fashions, _this_ —” he waved his wand again, and the line flattened out into a sheet of golden light, rippling gently “—is how time functions. Not a line, but a plane, with multiple things happening at multiple points simultaneously. Depending on how we perceive these events, we say they become before or later, but it is impossible to say that two distinct events can occur simultaneously if they are divided in space. To study time, you must study space, and to study space, you must study time. The two are inexorably linked.”

“That’s physics,” said Hermione. “I’m fully aware of physics, Mr. Croaker. That is, in very simple terms, Einstein’s special theory of relativity.”

“Excellent,” said Croaker, and waved his wand again. This time, a single figure—one with bushy hair—stood at one end of the golden plane. She was small, only about the length of Hermione’s hand, and she seemed—Hermione blushed a little—to also be made entirely of golden light. “This is you,” said Croaker. “Now, one morning, you choose toast for breakfast.” The little Hermione waved her hand, and shoved something into her tiny face. “You continue on with your day. But what if, at that point, you chose oatmeal for breakfast?”

Hermione frowned.

“There then exists—” Croaker waved his wand yet again, and another tiny Hermione sprung up out of the golden plane “—two witches. The choice is what divides you on the intersection between time and space.”

“So you’re saying—” Her brain buzzed. “You’re talking about the Everett interpretation.”

“I don’t know who Everett is,” said Croaker, “but there is, essentially, this theory: that every choice you make has corresponding alternate choices, and thus that there are as many worlds as there are choices for every person in the universe.” He waved his wand again, and three more layers of golden light, stacked above and below the first, appeared. In one, the little corresponding Hermione marched off without eating anything at all. In another, she sat a table and started moving her arm like she was drinking tea. “That is to say: the you that is here is not the you that is there, because the you that is here was taken by the Orbis Sanguis, and the you that was not remains where you were.” 

That—made sense and yet did not. “I don’t understand.”

“The Orbis Sanguis searched for a Black in your original time for you to save, Miss Granger,” said Professor Dumbledore. “It did not find one, as there were no Blacks left that it recognized. In its attempt to go after the Sirius you knew, it rebounded off the Veil between Life and Death—something that we do not, and cannot, fully understand. It also, if I understand your memory correctly, had been recently steeped in the magics of the Time Room. Orbis Sanguis are receptive protective objects; most are goblin-forged, and as such, they take in that which makes them stronger. Thus, when the Orbis Sanguis activated, it came up against the Veil—which is, in and of itself, a gateway between one plane of existence and another.” This time Professor Dumbledore waved his wand, creating a graceful, silvery imitation of the Arch on Croaker’s model. “The rebound of the Black family magic, the runic configurations, your personal donation to the Orbis—you said you gave it blood, did you not?—and the magic that divides Life and Death combined to send you—”

Light grew from the Arch, fractured like many different shards of glass. The first Hermione, the one who’d eaten toast, slipped through one, and vanished.

“…to the next nearest place with a Black,” said Hermione, softly. She looked at the Orbis in her palms, and closed her hands around it again.

“Precisely,” said Professor Dumbledore. “Specifically, the Black it had been attempting to save. The _last_ Black. And as, in this—shall we call it flavor?—of the universe, the Black the Orbis was seeking to protect was, in fact, alive and well and most likely asleep in bed in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, it simply released you to be found in the Department of Mysteries by the charming Unspeakable Croaker.”

 _Another dimension._ She’d read very little about space magic, if only because there was so little to read. All highly classified, all labeled _dangerous._ Even more so than time. Wizards who meddled with time came back to find their worlds upended. Wizards who meddled with the fabric of space and the universe itself— _nobody’s that stupid._

“Hang on,” said Healer Chatwicke. “You’re—you’re talking about interdimensional travel. Right? That’s just Muggle science fiction.”

“The Unspeakables have been studying the multiverse for generations, Healer Chatwicke,” snapped Croaker, and yanked his hood back over his head. “Whatever we have found is classified. That is to say, it is not _impossible_ that that is what’s happened to Granger. Highly improbable. But then again, so is the continued existence of an Orbis Sanguis. They were all ordered destroyed after the last Goblin Uprising in 1879.”

“1879?” Hermione blinked. “No, the last Goblin Uprising was—”

Professor Dumbledore gave her a significant look, and Hermione froze. She’d not heard of any goblin artifacts being destroyed after the last uprising, let alone of _any_ rebellion in 1879, but then again—

_This is not my world._

“But then why is it 1975?” She needed to know. Needed to understand. She had gone to Gryffindor in the end, but damned if she didn’t need to know _why_ the same way a Ravenclaw would. “Why would it throw me twenty—nineteen years in the past if not for—”

“You were in the Time Room,” said Professor Dumbledore, and shrugged. “Perhaps it picked up ambient magic. Perhaps our flavor of the universe ferments more slowly than your own did. Perhaps there was no time easier for you to get to, or perhaps at that moment of ricochet this world was the most in tune with yours. It is impossible to say, and without recreating the circumstances which brought you here, it will, most likely, remain a mystery.” 

“I have to get back,” said Hermione. “I have to get back to—to my time, to my _dimension_ , I can’t possibly stay here, I—”

“You can’t,” said Croaker shortly. When Hermione glanced at Professor Dumbledore, he met her eyes for only a moment before looking away. “That’s not how this works. You’ve been displaced from your world and into ours using the power of the Veil. That’s a one-way trip.” He paused, then added, “The Veil only ever sends someone one way.”

Her throat worked. She did not—she was not sure she was properly feeling anything. There was nothing inside her. As if her belly had opened up and dropped all her organs and intestines through to the hospital floor. There was no sound inside her head, no thought. Simply an echo.

_You can’t._

“I must,” said Hermione. The words cracked, clean in two. The Orbis Sanguis fell from her hands onto the floor. “I have to get back. My friends, my—”

 _Family._ Her mother. Her father. They’d waved her off at the platform in September. She’d barely written in the last month. She hadn’t even gone home for Christmas. The last time she’d seen them had been September, when they’d waved at her through the window of the Hogwarts Express. The last time she’d seen Harry had been in the Department of Mysteries. And Ron—she didn’t even know if Ron was _alive,_ he’d been lying on the floor so quiet and still—

“I have to get back.” She pushed the blankets back. Healer Chatwicke made an abortive noise, stepped forward, but a sharp gesture from Professor Dumbledore kept her still. Hermione wobbled onto her feet, too numb to be embarrassed that Professor Albus Dumbledore and an Unspeakable were seeing her in a hospital gown. Her knees shook underneath her. “I have to—”

“Even if you could,” said Croaker, and his voice had softened, turned a little sympathetic, “the effort would most likely kill you. It was only the Orbis Sanguis which brought you here in the first place. Without a Black in your universe left to protect, there’s no way the door can be opened again.”

“You don’t—you don’t understand, you’ve—” Her knees went out. Professor Dumbledore caught her before she hit the floor, and she fisted her hands in his neon pink robes, trying not to scream. _Don’t scream. There’s no point in screaming._ Now was a time for thought. Rational thought. _Sense._ But sense kept evading her. “They need me. They—Harry needs me. My parents need me. Ron—”

Ron would survive without her, she thought. He’d be devastated, but he had his family, his brothers and sister, friends—he’d survive. But—but Harry, Harry had just lost Sirius, he could not lose her too, and more than that, _she_ could not lose _them,_ her boys, her friends, her _family_ —

“I am so very sorry, my dear,” said Professor Dumbledore. He did not let go of her. “We will, of course, look into it, but as it stands—I am afraid you are here with us, now, as we are here with you.”

Hermione wrenched away from him. She could not be touched. Not now. She missed the bed, hit the floor with a crack that should have worried her, but she just sat there, numb, her hands trembling. In the distance, her right leg began to ache. “You don’t understand,” she said again. “You _don’t understand._ They _need me_. They can’t _survive_ without me, they won’t—Voldemort wants Harry dead, he won’t _survive_ if I’m not there to help—”

She did not see how Professor Dumbledore’s eyes sharpened. Healer Chatwicke was too quick for that. “Come on,” said the Healer, and heaved her up into the bed again. “Up you come, there’s a girl,” but at the touch, the softness of it, Hermione burst into sobs. She could not breathe. Her lungs, her ribs, could not handle the tears, but she also could not stop crying. Snot built in her nose and throat. She heaved, and sobbed, and heaved again, and through the storm she heard Healer Chatwicke say “— _not tell her all of it at once_ —”

“—deserved to know—”

“ _Get out_ , the pair of you—”

 _I’ve lost them,_ she thought, and sobbed louder. Harry, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Luna. Professor McGonagall. Tonks. Sirius. Professor Lupin. Hagrid. _Her parents._ Her parents who would never know what happened to her; her parents who had lived through five long, terrible years of letters and panic, at their daughter being hurt, cut, petrified, nearly de-souled, dragged under a lake, and now, to them, _dead_ , gone forever, no body to bury—

“Right,” said Healer Chatwicke. A cool hand cupped the back of Hermione’s neck, and gripped it as if she were a kitten. “Let it out, dear.”

Hermione screamed, long and loud, and buried her face between her knees. An arm curled over the backs of her shoulders. Healer Chatwicke hummed, and Hermione sobbed, and there was nothing— _nothing_ —right in the world anymore.

Outside, a full moon rose over London.


	3. Russet House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fantastic @runakvaed (@runakvaed on Tumblr) made BEAUTIFUL MOODBOARDS FOR THIS STORY I LOVE HER SO MUCH ;__; I'll be adding them to the top of the next few chapters. Bless her whole heart and her beautiful artwork.

She’d broken her right leg, in her weakness and clumsiness. “Falling down while taking Skele-Gro is asking for it, my girl,” Healer Chatwicke had said, and fixed her bones in a trice, but it took another week for them to be stable enough for her to walk properly, and by the time Hermione was released from St. Mungo’s— _how will I pay for it,_ she thought, _I don’t exist in this world, I’m not a part of any kind of insurance_ —she was relegated to using a cane to support her weight and _keep it off your right knee for Morgana’s sake, Granger._ That last from Healer Chatwicke, who sent her away from the ward with an Unbreakable Vow to keep her secret—Croaker’s idea—and a kiss on the brow. She’d whispered “good luck,” as if Hermione had any, and they’d made an appointment for her to return to St. Mungo’s on the first of August, to ensure that all the tonics she still had to take were doing their jobs properly.

Hermione was not the sort of person—or, at least, had not been the sort of person—to have a mental breakdown. She simply wasn’t. When she came up against problems, she devised solutions. This was, perhaps, the first time in her short life that she simply did not have the capacity to come up with a solution. She had never before come up against a problem which, by its very nature, could not be solved.

_You can only travel one way through the Veil._

She kept the Orbis Sanguis in the drawer of her bedside table, and refused to look at it.

She had not, technically, traveled _through_ the Veil—she was, after all, alive—but the Orbis Sanguis had utilized the Veil’s energy to power the trip. If Professor Dumbledore and Croaker were correct, and every rule-abiding bone in her body said that they must be, then with the last Black in her original universe dead and gone, there was simply no reason for the Orbis Sanguis to return her to her proper place. There was no guarantee, if she ripped a hole between dimensions, that she would even be able to get back to her original timeline. _Or_ that she wouldn’t be shredded in the attempt.

For three days she played with the idea of trying to build another Orbis Sanguis, power it with Potter blood, but—she couldn’t help cracking a small smile at this—she was quite sure that even if she _could_ convince a goblin to forge another one for her, and even if she _could_ afford it, and even if it _didn’t_ start another Goblin Rebellion the likes of which had not been seen in over a hundred years, no matter the universe, Harry James Potter was always getting himself into danger. And even without that filthy curse melting her insides, the trip had put her in St. Mungo’s. Her body quite probably would not be able to survive the multiple dimensional jumps that would likely be necessary to find _her_ Harry again.

_He’ll think it’s his fault. He’ll think I’m dead, and that it was his fault._

Harry _bloody_ Potter, convinced that every death around him was because of him. _I chose to go with you_ , she wanted to shout, but of course he wouldn’t be able to hear. _I chose to go with you to the Department of Mysteries. I chose. You didn’t make me do anything. You didn’t make me pick up the bloody compass. You didn’t make me arrogant enough to think I could solve it._

Thinking about Harry was somehow easier than thinking about her parents. That was cruel of her, but it was true. She could not think of her parents without losing her head and bursting into tears. Not even the mind healer Chatwicke had recommended could stop that.

Healer Adegbuyi was a small, delicately-wrought black man with silvering eyebrows and a shaved head that gleamed in the flickering candlelight of the hospital. In Hermione’s estimation, he didn’t do particularly much. He tried to get her to talk about her _loss_ , the first few sessions, and when it became clear that she would not, he simply asked about her recovery. Not her mental recovery, but the physical one. It was nice talking to someone who wasn’t Healer Chatwicke, but it wasn’t what the visits were for, and they both knew it. She was supposed to be baring her soul, or something. Instead, she was showing him how she could put her weight on her right leg again without the bone snapping like brittle ice.

By the time Professor Dumbledore wrote to her, and said he’d found a place for her to stay, she’d had enough of St. Mungo’s to last a lifetime. She’d have to come back—for physical check-ups/ for the next month or so, and appointments with Healer Adegbuyi until he deigned to release her—but she was no longer trapped in the wards. It was a distinct improvement.

She slipped the Orbis into the pocket of her borrowed jeans without looking at it. It was dangerous, she thought, to leave it lying around.

Professor Dumbledore met her in the Atrium. For once, he seemed to have dressed down; his robes were a muted shade of blue, rather than the eye-popping colors she remembered from school. His hat was somber and small, and he took her hand and squeezed it once as she limped closer to him before letting it go. “Good afternoon, Miss Granger.”

Hermione nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

“I’ve taken the liberty of arranging a place for you to stay,” he said, and shifted his arm so she might take it, careful to stay on her strong side. It was a little awkward keeping her balance that way, but they managed. “A family I have known for a long time—” he gave her a considering look, and Hermione understood; _an Order family_ “—has volunteered to let you stay with them for the remainder of the summer. The mother, Magda McKinnon, is not a Healer, but she _is_ a very powerful witch, and her daughter, Marlene, has recently completed her Defensive mastery course and started training as a Hitwizard. Her other two children are both current students at Hogwarts.”

She frowned. She remembered the name Marlene McKinnon, she thought. Professor Moody had mentioned her, at the party. She’d died. And there’d been a footnote, in _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_. _Hitwizard Marlene McKinnon, her mother, and her two younger siblings were all tortured and murdered by Death Eaters. Their bodies were only identified by dental records._

Maybe, she thought, dully, she’d be murdered along with them, and simply recorded as a “distant cousin.”

“Thank you, Professor,” she said, aloud.

“It’s no trouble, my dear.” Professor Dumbledore peered down his long nose at her. “Though—before we retire to the McKinnons’, would you be up to a short discussion?”

Hermione blinked at him. “….is there something you wish to know?”

Professor Dumbledore shook his head, and watched a Healer walk by. “Not here. Perhaps—have you Apparated before, Miss Granger?”

“No, sir.”

“Then I will take you Side-Along,” he said. “It is, for the young and old alike, very unpleasant. I would brace yourself.”

Hermione thought that perhaps her definition of _unpleasant_ was different than most peoples’, but she didn’t say that. She clutched tighter at his arm, and nodded with her mouth pressed tightly closed.

“On my mark, then” said Professor Dumbledore. “One—two—”

He turned on three. 

It was very like being forced, piece by piece, into a mousehole. There was a terrible, rushing _squeezing_ sensation, as if she were being shoved into a sock; her leg and ribs ached awfully; she opened her mouth to scream—

And then they were through, and standing—of all places—in an alleyway behind a coffee shop. There was a stray cat rooting through a garbage tip a few feet away, and when they appeared out of nowhere the poor thing jumped about a foot in the air and bolted with its whole body low to the ground, pregnant belly dragging on the concrete. Hermione covered her mouth rather than vomit, and shut her eyes for a moment.

“It’s very unpleasant,” said Professor Dumbledore again. “But difficult to describe sufficiently in advance. I apologize for the detour, Miss Granger. I thought it best if we speak somewhere we are sure we will not be overheard.”

Hermione looked at the café, and then at Professor Dumbledore. “Are we in—”

“Truro,” said Professor Dumbledore happily, and sure enough, one of the signs in the café window read _Te_ under the word _tea_. Touristy, and jarringly normal. “Or, rather, one of the smaller villages just outside of it. Magda McKinnon lives two streets over, but she and her children are not expecting us for another half an hour, and fortunately for our purposes, this neighborhood is almost entirely divorced from the wizarding world. So—”

He waved his wand, and his robes transformed into a pinstripe suit of the exact same color. His hair and beard were still far too long for Muggles to not think of him as a bit odd, but at least he was no longer in robes that seemed to faintly gleam like starshine. Hermione, who was in ragged borrowed jeans and a T-shirt that had seen better days—borrowed from Healer Chatwicke, who was five full inches taller than her; Hermione had had to roll up the legs of her old-fashioned flaring jeans—followed him in, wishing she had a tie for her hair. She hadn’t needed one in the hospital. It didn’t exactly matter how much your hair looked like a rat’s nest when you were in recovery. 

“Hullo,” said the waitress, appearing as if from nowhere. She gawped at Professor Dumbledore for a second or two before remembering herself, hoisting her notebook as if it were a shield. “Tea?”

“I will have some of your excellent coffee, if you please,” said Professor Dumbledore. Hermione, eyeing the grey tabletop, wondered if it was possible to call _anything_ in this place excellent, but she bit her tongue. “And a plate of scones, if you would be so kind. Miss Granger?”

“Just tea,” said Hermione. “With lemon, please.”

The waitress bustled off. Professor Dumbledore waited, and then folded his hands neatly on the table. It was very odd, she thought, seeing Professor Dumbledore this way; in a world that so very clearly did not have the capacity to expand and fit him into it. In many ways, Hermione felt safer in the Muggle world than she did in the wizarding one; nobody was out to kill her, for example. The main danger on a day to day basis was being struck by a car, or, perhaps, shouted at by a stranger on the street. Professor Dumbledore so clearly did not fit into the vinyl booth of this tiny tourist café in Cornwall that it was like finding a van Gogh in a London deli. So out of the ordinary that it itched under her very skin.

“I must apologize to you, Miss Granger.”

Hermione blinked. Behind the café counter, the waitress was humming a Beatles song out of tune, soft enough that she could blatantly eavesdrop. Professor Dumbledore seemed not to care. He looked at her, blue eyes steady and mournful, and folded his hands on the tabletop.

“Sir?” said Hermione.

“I make it a principle,” said Professor Dumbledore, “to be as honest as I can about things that are safely shared. But Mr. Croaker and myself did not, perhaps, think it through as well as we should have, how to break the news to you about your parents. It was ill done, and I apologize. There were much gentler and, I believe, much less abrupt ways that we could have informed you of the current state of affairs. You deserved that.”

Hermione shook her head, and stared at the grain of the table for a moment or two. It was cracked, showing the marbling inside; cheap tables and a cheap vinyl booth. The place stank of flowery dish soap. The Orbis Sanguis hung heavy in her pocket. “No,” she said after a moment. “I would have wanted to know. I _wanted_ to know.”

“But that does not mean it had to be thrust upon you without warning,” said Professor Dumbledore, still very gentle. “It is a large and unhappy thing, to lose one’s whole life in a single stroke.”

 _But it’s my life_. She wanted to scream at him. _It’s my life and I have the right to know when it’s been taken._ She took a trembling breath, and held it. _Breathe. Count._ Her father had taught her to do that, when she’d been an excitable child eager to share all her knowledge. _Count backwards from thirty before you get angry, love._ People would get angry when she corrected them, and her temper would always flare back at any challenge. After a while it just became easier to handle _any_ emotion that way, anything that was too strong for her to process without thinking it through. _Count back from thirty, Hermione. Deep breaths._

 _Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight_ …

“I’ve known people who had it worse than me,” said Hermione. “They survived. So I will, too.”

Professor Dumbledore blinked, but he didn’t ask, and she was desperately grateful for that, though she could read the questions in his face. _Worse than losing your whole world_?

 _At least I know they must be alive,_ she told herself, firmly. Nobody in her world would let Harry die. Nobody would let her parents die. Without her, her parents might even be _safer_. And the Order— _the Order will keep Harry safe._

If she told herself that often enough, perhaps it would ring less hollow.

 _Twenty-five, twenty-four, twenty-three_ …

“Will it happen again?” said Hermione.

Professor Dumbledore shook his head. “No. While Mr. Croaker indicated that there is no way to _sever_ the bond between the Orbis and yourself, especially after you added your blood to it, he took the liberty of disabling the transportation rune. If something should occur and the Orbis Sanguis attempts to take you somewhere, it should be powerless.”

Hermione let out a breath, and nodded.

“I understand that you are seeing a mind healer,” said Professor Dumbledore, softly, so the waitress couldn’t hear him. “But please feel free to write to me or inform me if you need assistance, Miss Granger.”

“I’m sure I’ll—”

“I’m afraid I insist,” he said, and she closed her mouth. “While the circumstances might be—somewhat exceptional, the Ministry has assumed that you are a Hogwarts student, and thus in my care. In their eyes, and in mine, if I may be so bold, I am, effectively, your guardian at this moment.”

She almost laughed. _Like Harry_ , she thought. When did _she_ become the one getting chats with Professor Dumbledore about guardianship and the Ministry and secrets? Her guts twisted up into a knot, tight as anything. “I—I understand, sir.”

The waitress reappeared with coffee, scones, and tea. There was a thick slice of lemon on her saucer, and when Hermione squeezed it into her mug, the juice stung at her gnawed-on fingernails.

“Which brings me to my next, and hopefully more uplifting, point,” said Professor Dumbledore. “Scone?”

“No, I—”

“I cannot eat four scones by myself, Miss Granger. Much as I may wish to, my deputy headmistress will be very displeased with me.” His eyes crinkled. “She’s on at me to eat fewer sweets, you see. Scones may not quite qualify, but I daresay there is enough sugar in these to rile her, if she were to hear I had all four.”

Hermione thought of Professor McGonagall riled, her eyebrows joining into one massive line as Umbridge inspected her lesson, and could not help but smile. She took two scones at random, and settled in to wait.

“Now,” said Professor Dumbledore, watching as she drank her tea, “the Healers at St. Mungo’s did a number of tests on you while you lay unconscious for the first three days after your—rather explosive arrival. It was determined that you are, as of yet, under the age of seventeen, though whatever journey brought you hear destroyed all fragments of the Ministry’s Trace on your magic. It was estimated that you are—about sixteen?”

“Sixteen, yes. About.”

“Born in 1979,” said Professor Dumbledore quietly. Then: “I apologize. It is simply—it is exceptional, in a way, Miss Granger. An exceptional piece of magic.” 

“I had nothing to do with it.”

“It accepted you,” he said. “Which, as it was soaked in the Black family magic, is extraordinary in itself. But that is beside the point. I do not know if it is similar in your wizarding Britain, but in this one, at least, the Ministry requires that all witches and wizards under the age of seventeen either attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, another school on the continent, or provide evidence that you are receiving the Ministry-recommended education via private tutors through at least your Ordinary Wizarding Levels. I recall you mentioning it was June when you—left your home; had you taken all your OWLs that year?”

Hermione nodded.

“And unless things are drastically different where you’re from, you would not have received your results.” He stroked his beard. “For a student to go from finishing her OWLs to breaking into the Ministry of Magic is—really quite extraordinary.”

“Not very.” Hermione turned her mug slowly between her hands. “Things like that always happened around Harry.”

“Ah,” said Professor Dumbledore. He broke off a bit of scone, ate it, and then stared out the window for a while in deep thought. Hermione picked at her own scone in silence without eating it, feeling a bit queasy. In his suit and with his hair tucked back, she could make out a scar almost the shape of a half-moon just behind Professor Dumbledore’s right ear. She could not remember ever seeing a scar like that on the Professor Dumbledore she knew, not in five full years of being his student, and though it was logical that he would hide scars from students (and, after all, it was in a place very easily hidden) it was the first real visual evidence she’d had that _this_ Professor Dumbledore was not _her_ Professor Dumbledore. It made her hands clammy and her stomach cramp. When he turned to look back at her, his hair shifted, and the scar was hidden away again.

“You’ve mentioned him many times,” said Professor Dumbledore. “Your friend, Harry. You say that Lord Voldemort was after him?”

He said it so casually that Hermione almost didn’t notice it. When she processed, she looked at him, hard, searching his face. This was not, she told herself, _her_ Professor Dumbledore. She had, at the moment, enough reason to trust him with _her_ life, but there was no guarantee that just because Professor Dumbledore was trustworthy and good in _her_ world, that he would be so in this one. The universes seemed to be similar enough so far—with him being Headmaster, and St. Mungo’s being in the same place; with everything being so terribly similar—but she did not know for sure, not yet. She had to be cautious, she thought, and curled her hands around her mug. Had to be careful. She’d already blurted out enough of her past. 

“Yes,” she said, after a moment. “Every—almost every year since I met him.”

“But your friend, this Harry—he was only a boy, was he not? A student in your year?” Professor Dumbledore leaned forward. “Miss Granger, I understand if you are reticent to give me any information about—your version of events, as it were, but from what you told me the night you awoke, Lord Voldemort had only recently returned to power in 1996, after a long time in stasis. Why, then, was he so intent upon the life of a fifteen-year-old boy?”

“I don’t know,” Hermione said, after a long time. “You would never tell him. People thought it was because Voldemort—” Professor Dumbledore’s eyes sharpened, and stayed fixed on her, and she realized her mistake—so few people said his name. Hermione took a breath, and continued. “Because Voldemort tried to kill him, with the Killing Curse, but it failed, somehow. Nobody knew why. Both his parents died to save him, and Harry lived, and there was never any real attempt to explain it, so far as I’m aware.”

“His parents,” said Professor Dumbledore. “Would you be willing to give me their names?”

Hermione opened her mouth, and closed it. “He hasn’t been born yet.” _And in this world he might never exist_ , she thought, but her stomach cramps grew so bad that she almost vomited. She shoved that concept, a world without Harry, deep into the back of her head and locked it away. “And—and I’m—I’m sorry, Professor Dumbledore, but I don’t—I don’t feel comfortable talking about things that might happen in the future. Even if they might not _happen_ , here, it—it worries me. I—I can’t, yet.”

Professor Dumbledore sighed, and nodded. “I understand.”

She looked down into her tea. There was a bit of scum on the top of it; a gnat that had been caught in the surface, and drowned without her noticing.

“Miss Granger,” said Professor Dumbledore. “I would not pry if I did not have to. Your coming here was unintended, and I am not a great believer in Divination; I do not believe things necessarily occur for some fated reason. I do not know how the Great Civil War ended in your time, or how long it lasted before it did, but I can tell you that there is—there is great danger, here. The war has lasted almost seven years, now, and I fear it will last a great many more. Any information you can give me that may assist in ending it sooner, anything at all, may save countless lives.”

She swallowed, hard. Hermione locked her hands in her lap, and rubbed sweat off her palms onto her jeans.

 _Seven_ _years._ That was already two years longer than it had been in her time, starting in 1968 instead of 1970. _Things are different here,_ she thought, and gnawed at her lip. It truly wasn’t the world she remembered.

 _Which means,_ her logic said, stubbornly, _that there’s no reason to think anything you tell him will do more than send him down the wrong path and get people killed._

“I understand your hesitation,” he said. “I believe I would share it, were I in your position. There is no guarantee that any of your information will be accurate; if it is, sharing it may alter history as you remember it. But at this point, we are losing, and when you begin to lose, you see, you become desperate. I do not wish to pressure you, only to let you know that if you make a decision, you can owl me at any time, Miss Granger. Day or night. And you may rest assured, I will share nothing of what you may tell me with anyone who may come to harm because of it.”

For once, she couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Hermione mumbled, “Yes, sir,” at her hands, and picked at her fingernails.

“Then that is decided,” said Professor Dumbledore, and collected his coffee. “But—but I must extract a promise from you, Miss Granger, if I may.”

Hermione looked up at him in confusion. “Sir?”

“You spoke of the Order,” said Professor Dumbledore, studying her over his spectacles. His eyes, which were usually so warm, had gone frosty. “Your memories show that you were—intimately involved with that association. I must request, Miss Granger, that you speak of the Order to no one but myself. We are not in times where such information is wisely bandied about. A slip of the tongue could cost many lives. Do you understand?”

Her hands were trembling. Hermione collected a teaspoon, scooped the gnat and the scum off of the top of her mug of tea, and folded it away into a paper napkin. She wished she could dump it, get a new mug, but—she curled her fingers around it anyway, for the warmth.

“Yes, sir,” she said, in a very small voice. “I promise.”

Professor Dumbledore watched her—again, there was that funny pressure in her head, as if a headache was building behind her eyes—before nodding. “Then there’s still the matter of your schooling to resolve,” he said, and his gaze warmed again as if it had never gone cold. “The Ministry will, by necessity, look the other way if asked by Mr. Croaker—after all, there is a reason why his position is called _Unspeakable_ —but a talented young witch emerging from nowhere, especially in these times, attracts more attention then, perhaps, you would want.”

 _Especially as a Muggleborn._ It went unspoken, but she felt it all the same, sinking deep into her bones. Hermione rubbed at her forearms, suddenly cold. She was reminded, suddenly, of Sirius in the cave near Hogsmeade, face and beard smeared with chicken. _Every week, news comes of more deaths, more disappearances, more torturing…The Ministry of Magic’s in disarray, they don’t know what to do….Terror everywhere…panic…confusion…that’s how it used to be._

How it _was_.

“Yes,” she said, after a moment. “Yes, that—that seems logical.”

“Then might I suggest a story?” said Professor Dumbledore. “You, perhaps, have a parent from a European nation, and even though you were born in England, you attended school abroad. Your parents—or family—are now deceased, though I will leave the details for you to determine, as it’s best if you make your own decision; in my experience, you remember the story you come up with yourself much better than a story that is given to you by another. You came back to England in order to stay with your new guardian, namely Magda McKinnon, as because you are Muggleborn, you have no other wizarding family in Europe or in the United Kingdom. Is this acceptable?”

Hermione wet her lips. “France would be easiest,” she said, slowly. “I—I’ve been to France. A few times. I have cousins there, Muggle cousins. I speak French.”

“Beauxbatons Academy for Magic, then” said Professor Dumbledore. “I will contact the Headmistress there, Madame Olympe Maxime; she has expressed a number of concerns about the safety of Hogwarts students, and I am certain she would be willing to construct an academic record on your behalf. As for the Ministry’s requirements, would you be willing to leave that in my hands once you determine how you wish to proceed with your history?”

“All right,” said Hermione. In a normal meeting, on a normal day, she would _never_ —she would need to know how to do this, how to _fix_ it, but—but this was not a normal day, and she was tired, and her ribs hurt, and she did not have the energy to tell the Ministry a fake story about how her family died. “But I—I would like to see everything, before it gets sent in. If that’s possible?’

“Of course,” said Professor Dumbledore. “And—if you wish, Miss Granger, there is a place for you at Hogwarts.”

Her throat closed up. Hermione ducked her head, and pinched the bridge of her nose hard, trying not to let the tears well up. _Hogwarts_. Hogwarts without Harry and Ron, Ginny or Neville or Luna; Hogwarts without the Weasley twins making her life hell. Hogwarts with Professors McGonagall, Flitwick—maybe even Hagrid, but not the ones she _knew._ Professor Dumbledore waited in silence until she caught her breath and looked up at him again, and Hermione _hated_ him for a moment, for all the pity in his worn, wrinkled face. His eyes were too kind, right now. She didn’t need _pity_. She didn’t need _kindness_. She needed—

_I need to go home._

“I would be happy,” she said, finally, “to attend Hogwarts, Professor. Only—I don’t have any money. I can’t—I don’t have books or a trunk—” _or my cat_ , she thought with a pang, which perhaps hurt worse than anything that had come before, because nobody would be able to explain to Crookshanks what had happened to her, nobody would be able to tell him, he would just wait and wait for her to come back and never know why she couldn’t “—and—forgive me, Professor, I appreciate the loan, but—this wand isn’t even mine.”

“There is a fund,” said Professor Dumbledore, “for students who are experiencing financial difficulties due to the war. There are—many casualties of the Civil War, not the least of them parents of students who are kept safe in Hogwarts. It is not much, but there will be enough to support you during your time at school. Your Head of House will take you through the details after your Sorting.”

“And until then, I—”

“Ms. McKinnon has graciously agreed to sponsor you until you come to Hogwarts.” He took a sip of coffee. “She is a Potioneer by trade, and it will not stress her overmuch to have another child in the house. She has offered to assist with your books and clothes—and a wand,” he added, and Hermione relaxed. It would not be _her_ wand—her wand was with Neville—but it would be a wand that worked better for her than this oak one. “If you could take care of the oak wand, however, I would appreciate it. The Ministry is reluctant for witches or wizards to retain spares, but I am lucky enough and, I daresay, clever enough that they don’t question me about mine. I would like that one back, eventually.”

Hermione struggled with words for a moment. The oak wand, in her back pocket, suddenly felt lumpy and odd, too-warm and strange. _Why would Professor Dumbledore keep spare wands?_ She swallowed that back, and pinched hard at the bridge of her nose again.

“Well, then,” said Professor Dumbledore. “Unless you have other questions, Miss Granger, I suggest that we finish the scones? And then I will bring you to Ms. McKinnon’s cottage before she wonders if we have been beset by trolls.”

“Sir—”

In the middle of his sip of coffee, Professor Dumbledore looked up.

“Does—do they know?” She bit her lip. “About me.”

Professor Dumbledore shook his head. “No,” he said. “And though it is your choice, I would strongly advise you, due to the nature of Mr. Croaker’s work, to stick to your cover story as much as you can. It may be dangerous for them, and for you, if you say anything more than you have to.”

Hermione took another sip from the mug. It was too hot, still; scorching at the roof of her mouth. Once she swallowed, she said, “I understand.”

Professor Dumbledore nodded, and they ate their scones in relative silence.

Healer Chatwicke had pronounced herself proud of how quickly Hermione had been recovering, but walking still tired her. By the time they turned the corner onto a long lane called Penny Close, her knee ached, and her lungs were gusting as if she’d just run a mile. Professor Dumbledore had been right; they weren’t in Truro proper at all, but in one of the surrounding townships, and houses were set far apart from each other. They stopped at a patch of empty grass, one that seemed occupied by nothing but wildflowers, and Professor Dumbledore slipped a hand into his pocket to withdraw a small bit of parchment. He gave it to Hermione without a word. It read:

_You are hereby invited to Russet House, Penny Close, Kenwyn._

_The Fidelius Charm_ , she thought.

As if in answer, there was a faint shimmering out in the grass. Slowly, as if out of a mirage, a cottage—well, not quite a cottage; larger than that, though also not quite the size of a full house, either—emerged out of the grass. It was two stories, with three chimneys (one of them letting out belches of green, sparking smoke that was vaguely disturbing) and a layer of shivering ivy over the eastern wall, framing windows and doors in a blanket of green. There was also a beautiful rose gate, a trellis curved into an arch over the little wooden latch-gate that only came up to Hermione’s hips. To the untrained eye, she thought, it just looked like another house. She was fairly certain only witches and wizards would have been able to see the gentle ripple of protective wards in the air, the vaguest distortion, like heat waves.

Professor Dumbledore gave her a moment to breathe before clearing his throat at the small wooden gate, and saying, “I am Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. I bring the girl, Hermione Granger, as discussed. The password is _mellon_.”

Hermione blinked. A gap opened in the wards, just around the gate; Professor Dumbledore opened the gate, ushered her through, and latched it again, and the wards fell back into place behind them.

“Have you read _The Fellowship of the Ring,_ Professor?” she said, after a moment. Professor Dumbledore blinked at her.

“I have not, no. Though Magda asked me the same, when she first told me the password.”

“Never mind, then,” said Hermione, ducking her head. Her lips were quivering. _Speak, friend, and enter._ She wondered if Ms. McKinnon was Muggleborn.

 _Though…it’s only the seventies._ She couldn’t remember the first year of publication for _Fellowship of the Ring_ —she was fairly confident it was around the Second World War—but perhaps Ms. McKinnon had been introduced to it some other way than finding it in a Muggle shop. It was clever; a clue wrapped up in a Muggle novel would be impossible for most Death Eaters to conceive of guessing, let alone use.

“There you are,” said a voice, not from in the house but from deeper in the garden. A frizzy head popped out of a stand of bushes as a small, slender witch leveraged her way up out of the dirt. Her olive skin was splashed with a scar on her right cheek, one with spattering speckles over her temple and above her eyebrow, like a potion had blown up in her face. She held her wand in one hand, and did not point it at either of them, pushing her hair out of her eyes instead. “What was the last request Albus Dumbledore made of me before he left for St. Mungo’s?”

“To prepare yourself in case of attack,” said Professor Dumbledore, “as I do not believe our most recent excursions will go unnoticed.”

The woman huffed, and snapped her wand into a wicked-looking forearm holster that Hermione was fairly certain Tonks would have killed for. “Well, you’re you, then,” she said, and looked at Hermione. Her eyes were honey colored, though whether it was natural or from magic, Hermione couldn’t say. She dusted the dirt off her hands, and rather than shake her hand, the woman gave her a serious look before saying, “May I hug you, dear?”

Hermione blinked. She couldn’t recall ever being _asked_ for a hug, especially from a complete stranger. Still, there wasn’t any particular reason to say no, so she hummed a vague assent. The woman—Magda McKinnon; it must have been—reached up to put her arms around Hermione’s neck and hold on for a moment, careful of her delicate ribs and the hand on her supportive cane. “I’m sorry,” she said, in a low whisper, and Hermione’s throat tightened. “I know it’s not helpful to hear, and you’re probably well and done with it by now, but I am sorry, dear.”

She couldn’t speak. Hermione took a breath, and let Ms. McKinnon hold her ‘round the neck for a moment or two longer, unable to move away. The woman smelled like the greenhouses at Hogwarts, earthy and damp but not in a particularly bad way. Green, like living things.

“Miss Granger has decided she would like to attend Hogwarts in the fall, should she be well enough,” said Professor Dumbledore, when Ms. McKinnon finally let go. “I leave her in your capable hands until then, Magdalene.”

“ _Magda_ ,” said Ms. McKinnon, with the air of this being an age-old argument. “Only my mother called me Magdalene.”

 _Don’t call me Nymphadora_ , said a memory in her head, and Hermione bit her tongue rather than let her lips quiver.

“—staying for dinner, Albus?”

“I have to get back to the Ministry,” said Professor Dumbledore, “but thank you for the offer. I think it’s best if we get Miss Granger inside; it’s been a long day already.”

“Of course.” Ms. McKinnon put her hands on her hips. “We’ll keep an eye on her, Albus, don’t worry.”

“I have complete faith in you,” said Professor Dumbledore.

Ms. McKinnon rolled her eyes.

“Miss Granger,” said Professor Dumbledore, and Hermione shifted her grip on her cane. Her palm was suddenly sweating. “Please send me a letter as soon as you decide what you would like the Ministry to be aware of. And please remember that if you need anything, you are more than welcome to write. Anything addressed to the Hogwarts Headmaster will usually find its way to me eventually.”

Hermione made herself smile, though she thought even Ms. McKinnon could see how hollow it felt on her face. “Yes, Professor.”

Professor Dumbledore nodded to her, and swept back out of the rose garden. When he slipped through the wards, he vanished, as though he had never been. Even the crack of his Disapparation was oddly muffled, as if it came through deep, dark water.

“Well,” said Ms. McKinnon, and clapped more dirt off of her overalls. “We’ll start with this, then: don’t call me _Miss_ anything. Nobody calls me anything but Magda.”

“All right, M—Magda.” Hermione nodded. “I—think I can do that.”

“Excellent.” Magda hooked her thumbs into her pockets. “We’ve cleared a room out for you on the ground floor—Albus told me your leg still needs a little strengthening up—so you don’t have to worry about taking the stairs quite yet. The downstairs loo is right next to your room, too, so if you don’t want to budge from your bed for a day, you don’t really need to go that far. I’ve told the younger ones to let you have your space, but Marlene—my eldest—she sleeps in the room above yours, and she’s up late most nights studying. She’s in Hitwizard training,” said Magda, and though she sounded disgruntled, her eyes shone. “Gave up a promising offer to be a Potioneer like me to take a Defensive Mastery instead, but—what can I say. Three kids, plus me, plus you, means five, and that means we all won’t hopefully rattle around like peas in a can. I’ve told the little ones you’re the daughter of a Muggle friend of mine who’s been injured and needs a place to recover.”

“France,” said Hermione. Her voice cracked. “I’m—from France. Lyons.”

“Right,” said Magda. She digested that, and kept going. “Marlene’s too clever to not realize something’s up, especially with Albus poking his nose in three times in a month, but you can always tell her to bugger off if she gets too nosy, she’s sensible enough to back off if you ask. When you feel up to it I’d like you to help out with a few things ‘round the house, but that’s mostly picking up your own messes and making dinner once a week or so. We rotate, since I’ve a tendency to get caught up in my work and not remember what time it is. Oh, and on that note—basement’s off-limits. That’s my potions lab, and nobody goes in there. Too many sensitive substances.”

It was a barrage, and Hermione felt a little swept away by it. But it was so breathtakingly _normal_ that it almost itched. She nodded, stung into silence.

“Right then,” said Magda. “Other than that, I don’t think there’s anything else. Feel free to wander about and use the kitchen and library as you like. Mitzy and Mo are mad for Quidditch, so if you’re interested there are a few broomsticks you can use when you get your strength back up. There’s also a cat, but she comes and goes as she pleases. Mostly Kneazle, never listens to a word from anyone but Mitzy. Oh, and sometimes Mitzy’s dad comes ‘round to spend time with her, but he’s out of the country at the moment, so I don’t expect him back for a while. Any questions?”

Hermione shook her head. Magda was barefoot, Hermione realized suddenly. Her toenails were painted a shade of pastel orange.

“Right then,” said Magda again. “In we go.”

The interior of Russet House was a mix of fading wallpaper and rough-hewn stone, and even with the front door wide open and the sunlight filtering in in spills of yellow, it was delightfully cool. A collection of muddy boots lurked around the door like gnomes, and the soft yellow throw rug in the entry-hall was worn through in three places, as if it had been gnawed on by a dog. A set of rickety wooden steps led up to a second-floor landing, barely covered with a bronze carpet. At the top of the steps, a broom spun itself along, sweeping up dust. Magda hung her sunhat on a hook just inside the door, tripped over a broom, and then bellowed, “MITZY, GET YOUR BLOODY BROOMSTICK OFF THE BLOODY FLOOR OF THE HALL!”

“ _Not my broomstick_!” echoed a voice down the stairs, and Magda swore under her breath again before picking the thing up and tossing it into the corner.

“ _GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT, MORGANA MARILYN!_ ”

There was a wail of _but_ _Muuuuum_ from upstairs that Magda resolutely ignored; instead, she turned to Hermione, as if nothing had occurred, and said, in a much quieter voice, “Your room is down this way, dear.” 

Together they turned right, down a smaller hallway which opened up into a simple room at the end, beside a much narrower, much more unsteady set of stairs leading to the second floor. The door was painted white, and left open, and the latch was one of the old-fashioned ones with bars that you had to lift and drop again to get it to lock.

“Those are the back stairs,” said Magda, and stepped aside to let Hermione peer into the room. “Marlene’s right above you, like I said; Mo and Mitzy share another room, and then I’m on the opposite end of the second floor. Kitchen, library, and study are all on this floor. You’re not Mo,” she added, as a teenage girl clattered down the stairs.

“Mo’s up in the attic with Mitzy,” said the girl. Her hair was braided tight from the top of her head, and her feet were also bare, though her toenails were painted red, not orange. “They’re doing—something. Dunno.”

Magda fumed, and yanked her hair up into a high ponytail, growling through clenched teeth. “Honestly, that girl is the _limit_ —”

“Hullo,” said the girl, and turned to Hermione. She searched Hermione’s face, and then said, “I’m Marlene McKinnon. You must be Hermione.” 

Magda’s skin was olive colored, but Marlene’s was deeper black. She was also a head taller than her mother, with her hair tied up in braids like Angelina Johnson’s, though they went all the way down to her hips and were threaded through with brightly colored glass beads that clicked together as Marlene swept them over her shoulder. She had the same honey-colored eyes as Magda, though, and the upturned nose, and Marlene hugged her the same way Magda had, arms around the neck, but gently, so Hermione could escape any time she wanted. “Welcome to Kenwyn,” she said, and then let go at a scuffle of noise on the second-floor landing. Hermione caught a flash of bright blue jeans, and nothing else. “And that’s Mo, who is going to get her arse kicked.”

 _“_ MORGANA MARILYN _,_ ” said Magda, and stomped up the stairs. “WHAT THE HELL HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT LEAVING BROOMSTICKS WHERE THEY CAN GET PEOPLE KILLED, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING—”

“Mum’s bark’s worse than her bite,” said Marlene with a bit of a grin as Magda’s voice faded up the stairs. “Though I reckon you’ve noticed that. Softer woman I’ve never met in my life.”

Upstairs, there was a ricocheting squeal. It sounded more like laughter than anything. “Oh,” said Hermione.

“Mum said you’re probably going to Hogwarts in September?” Marlene raised one eyebrow, and Hermione realized it was pierced; a silver hoop, through the edge. When Hermione nodded, Marlene grinned again. “Fair warning, once Mitzy and Mo hear that, they’ll adopt you. Show you all around the castle, that sort of thing. Mitzy’s in Ravenclaw like me and Mum. Mo’s a Hufflepuff. Second and third year, respectively.” 

Hermione tuned out the lecture on the Hogwarts Founders and the Houses, shifting her way into the room that had been prepared for her. Two of the walls were painted eggshell blue, the other two a soft, pale yellow that seemed to be popular in this decade; Marlene’s shirt was almost the same color, and she’d seen a handful of people in the streets on the way to Russet House wearing something similar. The difference in colors should have been jarring, but somehow she liked it. Someone had painted the constellations on the ceiling in dabs of shining gold, labeling them in careful Latin. The bed itself was covered with a homemade blue blanket, and there was a stack of clothes at the end of it, folded neatly. The T-shirt on the top was a dirty white color with a rainbow stretching across the breast. 

“Those are for you,” said Marlene, cutting herself off in the middle of her own sentence. “Professor Dumbledore told us how tall you were, and we keep all our clothes to remake or hand down or turn into dustrags, so I found some things from when I was in fourth year. Washed ‘em, too, to get the dust out. I hope they fit.”

Hermione sat down on the bed, listening to the creak of springs, and said, “Thank you.”

“Did Mum tell you the rules?”

“She told me some.” Hermione began to inspect the clothes. Jeans and T-shirts at the top, longer-sleeved sweaters at the bottom, all in varying shades of brightly faded pastels. The jeans had flaring legs that seemed almost wider than her ribcage. “About how the basement is her lab, and how you split up making dinner. I’m—I can try to cook, but I’m not very good.”

“You’ll be better than Mum no matter what,” said Marlene with a fond smile. “She’s brilliant with potions and everything, but she burns water trying to boil an egg, or mistakes the soup for one of her projects and puts mandrake root in it, so we don’t let her cook. Usually I’m the one managing kitchen things, but I’m teaching Mitzy and Mo, so if you’d like to learn, you can sit in the kitchen and help out a bit. Not if you’re not ready, though.”

Hermione nodded. Her head was starting to ache.

“I’ll tell Mo and Mitzy to let you be for a while,” said Marlene, and Hermione looked up at her. The hope must have been so desperate in her face that Marlene added, “You can even sleep, if you like, they won’t bother you, I swear.”

“That—yes.” She folded the clothes back up again, and shifted them with some minor twinges to her ribs to the far side of the bed. “I’m—I’m sorry. I’m very tired.”

“Understandable,” said Marlene. She found the doorlatch. “I’ll come wake you around dinner, then?”

“Yes,” said Hermione. “Please.”

“D’you need help with changing or anything?”

Hermione’s head snapped up, but there was no taunting in Marlene’s face. No pity, either, which made her hackles drop. It wasn’t meant to be pitying. She bit her tongue rather than snap anyway.

“I’ll be fine,” said Hermione.

Marlene smiled, just a little, before drawing the door closed behind her.

There was a cooling spell on the blankets. When Hermione changed, and slid into the bed, her cane propped up on the bedside table, the sheets were delightfully chilly, and though they warmed, they would never get too hot in the summer air. She lay on her back—the only way she could be comfortable now, with her ribs still so sore and sensitive—and stared at the constellations on the ceiling, blinking slowly. She was too tired, she thought, to even cry. She’d probably do more of that later, though hopefully not before the McKinnons were asleep. She didn’t think they’d pity her, exactly, not with how frank they were, but she also didn’t want them to see her do it. She didn’t _like_ people seeing her cry. It made her uncomfortable and edgy and angry, and she was upset enough as it was.

They seemed nice, she thought. But there was something about them that reminded her of the Weasleys; of Mrs. Weasley and the twins, of Bill and Ron. She hiccupped, just a little, and pressed a hand over her face for a long awful moment. _Sirius survived twelve years in Azkaban_ , she thought. _Lupin lost his pack. Harry lost his parents and grew up with the Dursleys. Neville’s parents were tortured into insanity and his grandmother would rather he fall off a balcony than turn out to be a Squib. Dobby was abused his whole life by the Malfoys until Harry set him free. This is nothing compared to that. This is survivable. You’ll survive._

Upstairs, there was another thump and shriek of laughter, followed by a shushing sound. Little feet pounded down the stairs past her doorway, and then out in the garden there was a crow of delight. Probably one of the littler ones, she thought. Hermione dropped her hand back to the blankets, and traced out the constellation of Aquarius on the ceiling with her eyes, thinking.

_I need a plan._

She had to work out what had happened in this universe that was different from her own. She could do that with reading the _Prophet_ , she supposed, but there were other things—Order things—that she wouldn’t be able to ask about. Not right yet. Professor Dumbledore knew she knew about the Order in _her_ universe, but he’d not mentioned a thing about it since, and she doubted he would while she was underage. Magda was probably a member, and she remembered that in her own world Marlene had also been part of the Order, but there was no reason for _her_ , Hermione, to know about it—if she asked them, they’d probably panic, might even chuck her out. She’d have to wait.

Coming from France would make it easier to ask about the war, though. She wouldn’t know the full state of things here in England, if she’d grown up in Lyons. Nobody would be confused about her asking questions. And if she spoke English with her parents, her blended Peebles-Crawley accent wouldn’t be particularly confusing. 

_Read back-issues of the_ Prophet, she told herself. _Ask Magda and Marlene._ Then: _Rest._ She couldn’t do anything if she couldn’t bloody walk.

She could remember, from _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ , that there had been pureblood supremacist activity in France as well, in the sixties and seventies. While France had been much more liberal-minded than England—still was, she hoped—there were still pockets of Dark wizards and Voldemort supporters, especially in Alsace-Lorraine and surrounding territories. And then Eastern Europe, as well—hadn’t Igor Karkaroff been recruited from Bulgaria? And any number of witches and wizards had slunk into England to pledge loyalty to the Dark Lord when he announced himself. It was partly why the Ministry had had so much trouble with catching people; once Voldemort had been mostly destroyed the night of the thirty-first of October, 1981, many of them had fled back to Europe and gone back to their lives. The pureblood families here— _Malfoy, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle—_ had simply pretended to be under the Imperius Curse.

 _You don’t know if it’ll be the same here._ The war had already started two years earlier. There would be more differences between the worlds. Had to be, she thought, Professor Dumbledore’s scar being the least of them. She couldn’t _assume_ anything about any of it, least of all that anything she’d ever read or absorbed about the First Wizarding War— _Great Civil War,_ she corrected herself—would be anything close to accurate.

She’d have to keep a record, she thought. A list of differences between the two worlds. She was highly intelligent, she knew that much, but she was not sure that even her memory could keep track of every little thing that had or would change. It was time to stop feeling as though she were helpless, and time to stop sitting like a lump. She’d made her own bed, she thought. Now it was time to deal with it.

“The _Prophet_ ,” she said aloud. Then: “A notebook. And questions.” 

It was enough of a plan, for now. There were roses in the window. Hermione watched them, for a while, until she finally let herself drowse.


	4. Diagon Alley, Reversed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for mentions of racism (from Death Eaters); blood status bias (it's Harry Potter....); internalized misogyny; mentions of violence; and British use of the c-word (which is effectively as bad as the word "dick" so...). 
> 
> Thank you all for your lovely comments!! I may not be replying but I'm reading every one. :)

By the time she woke at dawn the next morning, Hermione felt—well, not better, exactly, but more capable of handling the world than she had the day before. She was also, for lack of a better term, starving. She could not remember Marlene actually managing to wake her up the night before, which probably meant she’d slept through it. Which meant, following the train of thought to its end, that the last time she’d had a full meal had been breakfast at St. Mungo’s, and _nobody_ could call hospital food a meal.

She felt odd, puttering through someone else’s kitchen before the sun was even fully risen, even if Magda had given permission. Hermione had to use her cane, and her ribs were still too fragile for her to hold any kind of weight, but in a wizarding house, it was unlikely the Trace—or whatever remnants of the Trace were still present on her skin—would activate with a simple Levitation spell. So she made tea, and then used the oak wand to lift the frying pan down from the wall and get it onto the gas stove. There were eggs and butter in the old-fashioned refrigerator, and some onions that looked as if they’d just been picked from a back-garden; they were fresh, but small and somewhat wrinkly, the way that grocery onions weren’t allowed to be. Tomatoes, too, and those Hermione chopped up by hand. It was only once she’d scrambled eggs—the only thing she really knew how to make, thanks to Hogwarts being _run on slave labor_ —and settled with a cup of tea at the rough-hewn kitchen table with all the windows thrown open that she went poking around looking for _Prophets_.

She hit paydirt in the library: a whole stack of old issues, clearly set aside to use for composting or some such thing, as well as a handful of books and a copy of this world’s version of _Hogwarts, A History_. There were also floor-to-ceiling bookshelves made of dark, shining walnut, and heaps of half-open cardboard boxes full of more tomes in languages she couldn’t read, but—no. _Stick with the familiar, first,_ she told herself, and Levitated the _Prophets_ and _Hogwarts, A History_ back into the kitchen to read as she ate.

She’d been keeping up with the _Prophet_ in the hospital, but there had never been any kind of article that had run any alarm bells. Then, though, she hadn’t been fully aware of exactly _what_ had happened with the Orbis Sanguis; then, she hadn’t been _looking_ for differences. She wasn’t examining the _Prophet_ like evidence. She made her way through eight papers, the color of light changing outside as she read, and took notes on a spare bit of parchment she’d found nestled in _Hogwarts, A History_ as a bookmark. She had to cast a warming charm on her eggs halfway through, when she took a bite at one point and found them rubbery, but other than that, it was actually more productive than she anticipated.

Rita Skeeter was still a journalist. She hadn’t had cause to doubt that, in hospital, but then again, she hadn’t known it was an option for Skeeter to _not_ be one. When she saw a byline with Skeeter’s name on it, she frowned, but decided finally that at least it was better _knowing_ what Rita was doing, instead of not having a clue. She’d managed to get headlines earlier than she had in Hermione’s world, at least. _DEATH TOLL RISES IN WIZARDING CLAPHAM_ , screamed the headline, _MINISTRY STRUGGLES TO HIDE GIANT ATTACK, by Rita Skeeter, Breaking News Correspondent_. The date was two months’ previous. Thirteen Muggles and four wizards killed in the attempt to subdue the giants, and the whole thing called a train derailment; the photo attached was of five Ministry wizards attempting to keep a massive male giant in chains, and Hermione wondered if this was one of the giants Hagrid had met in his mission for Professor Dumbledore. _Hopefully not._ She turned the page, and found another article, this one titled, _What To Do About You-Know-Who: An Opinion by Anonymous._

“Anonymous,” said Hermione darkly. Could be _anyone_. Could be a Death Eater, especially considering the decidedly centrist bent the author took.

The Minister for Magic was the same—Eugenia Jenkins, though, if things progressed the same way, she would be out of her position by the end of August and replaced by Harold Minchum, current head of the Auror Department; Hermione made another note—but the cabinet was different. Barty Crouch was not yet the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, only Deputy Head, which—if she remembered correctly—he’d achieved by 1973 in her world. Instead, the department was run by a woman named Ignatia Flack, who looked very much like a hawk in human form when she was actually photographed. In an article about goblin reactions to a family of them being murdered by Death Eaters, someone quoted Amos Diggory as the _Undersecretary to the Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures_ , which made Hermione growl aloud. Dolores Umbridge reared her poisonous head in an article on werewolf attacks as the _Head of the_ _bloody Werewolf Registry_ —Hermione growled again—but otherwise was nowhere to be seen. And then Fudge was the Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, but did not seem particularly involved in anything other than fluff pieces about the debate of the establishment of a Cornish Quidditch league, which seemed about right.

She’d made it about two-thirds of the way through the stack of _Prophets_ when the stairs creaked, and Hermione realized just how long she had been reading; normally it would never have bothered her, after so many years’ practice hunched over books and papers, but after spending most of the last month lying flat in bed, her muscles ached. She stretched her arms high (and carefully) over her head as Marlene staggered into the kitchen, looking bleary-eyed and irritable. Her eyes lit up at the sight of the eggs, though. “Morning, Hermione. Can I—?”

“Go ahead,” said Hermione, and folded up the nineteenth of December, 1973 issue of the _Prophet._ “I’m finished.”

“Brilliant,” said Marlene happily, and found herself a plate. It was only after she’d spooned half the eggs out of the pan and gulped down half a mug of tea that she noticed the _Prophets_ , and her pierced eyebrow lifted high. “You’ve been busy.”

“Not many people at Beauxbatons ordered British papers,” said Hermione. “We never heard very much. Only that things were bad. I wanted to—I wanted to read for myself.”

Marlene’s happy expression faded immediately. She set the kettle on again, pulled coffee from the cupboards, and scrounged paprika out of the spice rack to add to her eggs before saying, “Mm.”

Hermione opened up another _Prophet_ , this one from the tenth of March, 1972, and settled back in to reading. The front page of this one read _MUGGLEBORN FAMILY ATTACKED IN WILTSHIRE; THREE SURVIVORS_. It made her stomach knot up. Lucius Malfoy lived in Wiltshire, didn’t he? Malfoy bragged enough about his family’s manorhouse down there…

“The _Prophet_ won’t be of much help, if you’re trying to figure out what’s going on,” said Marlene abruptly, as the kettle began to whistle. Hermione blinked, and looked up from the page. “Half of what actually happens never gets reported. The Ministry keeps the worst things hushed up, so there isn’t a full-blown panic. What you can read about is just the tamer stuff, things with happier endings to make it seem like things are under control.”

Hermione looked down at the headline again, and realized she wasn’t particularly hungry anymore. She folded up the newspaper, and said, “Families getting murdered is tame?”

“By today’s standards? Most definitely.” Marlene finished spooning up her eggs, and settled at the table next to her. “Look, I’m only a trainee Hitwizard, I don’t get most of the news that cycles through the DMLE, but even I know things are bad. The Ministry tries to keep it hidden, but anyone with a grain of sense in their head can tell that it’s dangerous. I know Dumbledore said you didn’t have anyplace else to go, but it might have been safer if you stayed—”

Marlene stopped, abruptly, and gave her a look.

“My parents died,” Hermione said. She looked quite hard at the photo on the front page of the _Prophet_ , the snap and flash of a camera as a handful of Aurors in their long robes came marching out of an unassuming house in Wiltshire. One of them, she realized, was a younger-looking Alastor Moody. He had the magical eye already, but not the chunk out of his nose, nor the peg leg. The eye swiveled, and stared right up at her through the page, as if it could see through time and space; she folded the paper over rather than let him stare. “Purebloods in Lyon found out that I’m—that I’m Muggleborn. They—they found me and my parents, and they—”

She stopped, if only because she didn’t want to say anything else. _My parents aren’t dead_ , she wanted to say, _they’re alive and well and haven’t even had me yet,_ but Marlene couldn’t know that. Hermione took a breath, and added, “The French Aurors brought me to Madame Maxime, and Madame Maxime contacted Professor Dumbledore. I was born in England, and so when I—when I started doing accidental magic, it was Professor Dumbledore who came to explain it to my parents. I didn’t have any other family, so—so they decided it was probably best I be brought back here. It’s why I was in St. Mungo’s and not L’Hôpital des Flamels. And then Professor Dumbledore asked around and—and your mum volunteered to take me on.”

It felt—odd, to say aloud. Not because it felt fake, exactly, but neither because it felt true. It felt, she thought, the way it would feel to explain to someone who was not Muggleborn, who had never been involved with the wizarding world, what would have happened to her parents, and, likely, to her, if Voldemort had won the First War. _They’re safe,_ she told herself, _they’re safe where they are because I’m gone,_ and her throat closed up tight. _Nobody in my world will remember them. They’re safer without me around._ Her eyes blurred. Marlene watched her in silence, for a time. Hermione took a deep, shaking breath, and straightened out the stack of _Prophets_ rather than meet her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” said Marlene softly, and Hermione shrugged.

“It happened,” she said, in a brittle voice. “And even if Britain is dangerous, I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t have any family, none of my parents’ friends can take me because they don’t know what I am, and no one in France—” She thought of the Delacours, for one insane moment. “I don’t have many friends at Beauxbatons. Madame Maxime said I would be safer at Hogwarts.”

There was a creak from upstairs. Hermione wiped her face with the back of her hand, and drew the oak wand to Levitate the _Prophets_ onto the kitchen floor.

“She might be right about that,” said Marlene. “Hogwarts is probably the safest place in wizarding Britain right now, if only because it’s so old and protected. The wards have never been broken. And even if you take the Slytherins into account, the teachers are brilliant.”

Hermione nodded.

“Don’t tell Mo and Mitzy,” said Marlene after a moment. “About how dangerous it is right now, I mean. They’re too young to understand. They know something’s going on, they’re much cleverer than they let on, especially Mo, but—we’re trying to keep the worst of it from them as long as we can. Hard when Mum’s—close with Dumbledore, and I’m at the Ministry, but—”

“Right,” said Hermione. _Hard when you’ve family in the Order._ She thought of herself at thirteen and fourteen, about Sirius trapped in the tower and Dementors over the lake. “They might be able to take more than you think.”

“Maybe, but I don’t want them to have to, right now.” Marlene sighed. “I know it seems silly and dangerous, but Mum’s adamant. They know what’s in the _Prophet_ and what they hear from their friends, but not much else, and until it gets worse that’s not going to change. They’re only kids. They deserve to be happy for a while longer even if—”

She stopped.

“Even if we’re at war,” said Hermione.

“Yeah,” said Marlene. She shifted her eggs about on her plate with her fork, unable to look at her any longer. Very quietly, she said, “I’m sorry about your parents, Hermione.” 

Hermione shrugged. “I’m sorry to put you in danger.”

“Don’t be mad,” said Marlene. “Mum’s Muggleborn. And me and Mo and Mitzy, we’re all halfbloods. Mo might have a better time of it, since her dad’s a pureblood, but mine’s Jamaican, which is a black mark on my record already—purebloods hate mixed-race children almost as much as they hate mixed-bloods—” she said it so baldly that Hermione couldn’t actually be startled, though something stung, deep inside “—and Mitzy’s—well, anyway. We were already in danger. Besides, we all talked about the risks, and we all agreed. We wanted to help you if we could.”

“What did you say to them?”

“That Mum knew your parents and when Dumbledore told her something happened, she volunteered to take you on.” Marlene took a sip of her coffee. “My sisters are hags, but they’ll keep their noses out of your business unless you invite them to ask questions. Mum put the fear of Judas into ‘em about it.”

Hermione blinked. _Judas_? “Right.”

“They’ll be downstairs soon, more than likely,” Marlene added. “They’re usually up by now, but I think they were up late talking about boys again. Mitzy’s figured out that blokes exist, and it’s driving me up the bloody wall.”

Hermione snorted. “Bit early, isn’t it?”

“Mo’s the third year and Mitzy’s the second year, but they’re only eleven months apart. Irish twins. Anything Mo does, Mitzy wants to do at the same time, and Mo _apparently_ takes after Mum and had her first date at the end of her last term.”

 _A second year?_ Then again, considering her own, somewhat dim-witted fascination with Gilderoy Lockhart, she had no room to judge. Hermione took a sip of her tea, and then said, “I see.”

“Kids are kids,” said Marlene fondly. “And if I know Mo, she’s exaggerated to make herself sound very worldly and adult. All I can get out of her is that she held a boy’s hand, but she’s delighted, and that means Mitzy wants to catch up. They’re both gaga about this new wizarding band, too, never shut up about them, so that kept them up too, most likely. Anyway, you feel up to helping me make breakfast? They’re like buzzards, them and Mum. Need a whole loaf of bread toasted before they can get anything done.”

Hermione cast a mournful look at the packet of _Prophets_ , but eased herself off the chair all the same. She could help, she told herself. It was, in fact, the least she could do.

Of the two, Mitzy came down first. She was as alike to Magda and unalike to Marlene as she could possibly be; the same long straight shiny black hair, the same honey-colored eyes, same build, same skin tone. She said hello to Hermione, in a very sleepy voice, and promptly dozed off with her head on her arms on the tabletop, as if she were awake at some great and terrible hour and not almost eight o’clock. Mo clattered down next, and if she hadn’t had those self-same honey-colored eyes, Hermione would have wondered if she were adopted. Her skin was lighter, albeit still darker than Mitzy’s; her hair was frizzing and red; and her gangly little body was so freckled that she looked almost like a leopard. “Cheers,” she said to Hermione. “You’re her, then?”

“I suppose,” said Hermione. Marlene seized Mo by the collar of her pajamas, and pushed her towards the table.

“Don’t be nosy, Nosy. Where’s Natasha?”

“Coming,” said Mitzy blearily into her arms, and in the next moment a fluffy black-and-white cat came trundling down the stairs. Marlene opened the back door for her, and the cat bolted out into the garden without a single look at Hermione.

“You and that cat, I swear,” said Marlene, and put a plate of fried tomatoes and some sausage in front of Mitzy. Mo, instead, received eggs, tomatoes, and beans. “Mum was up late, so we’re not going to wake her yet. Mo, what’re your plans?”

Mo swallowed a mouthful of eggs, and then said, “Weeding the garden.”

“Good girl,” said Marlene. “Mitzy?”

“Sleep,” said Mitzy, dolefully, and shut her eyes.

“Wrong. Help Mo in the garden, there’s weeding to do and gnomes to toss over the fence before they give Mum an aneurysm.” Marlene glanced at Hermione. “And you—rest. If you have any questions or need anything, give us a shout.”

“But—”

“ _Rest_ ,” said Marlene ominously. “I have to work on some things for the Ministry, but I’ll be here all day today, so if you need anything, you let me know. Until your leg is better, you’re going to sit and you’re going to be patient.”

Hermione bristled, and nearly said, _You’re not my mother,_ but she bit her tongue. “Right.”

“If you’re feeling _really_ ambitious you can start going through the library. We need to reorganize. There are loads of books just in boxes from when Mum last went to Iran, and they need sorting.”

That, at least, she could do. And if she sat and read for a while, nobody would blame her. “Right.”

“And if Mum asks,” said Marlene, looking amused, “you’re just sitting, so she can’t get mad.”

“Huzzah,” said Mo, and shoved half a tomato in her mouth. Still chewing, she added, “Mum can’t yell at me as much with you in the house, Hermione, it’ll be wonderful.”

For the first time since she’d met Unspeakable Croaker, Hermione actually smiled. A full smile, not a tiny, guilty one. It was such a Weasley Twins thing to say that she couldn’t stop herself. “Cheers, Mo,” she said, and Mo grinned back at her with her mouth still full.

“Brilliant,” said Marlene, and clapped her hands. “Eat, and then off we go, team.”

.

.

.

It became clear over the next few weeks that while the head of Russet House was Magda McKinnon, the day to day supervisor was Marlene, and she took her job very, very seriously. 

“Gran owned Russet House before we did,” said Mo one day, as Hermione sat by the flower bed, picking weeds out from between the singing daffodils. She’d sent off her letter to Professor Dumbledore the day before, detailing her story as much as she could. She’d needed the sunlight in its wake. “And then she and Granddad moved back to Ireland, so she left it to us about three years ago. We didn’t move into it properly until last year, though. Mum wanted to stay in London for a bit longer, she had some contract—thing—with the Ministry, but that ran out last September, so while Mitzy and me were at Hogwarts Mum and Marlene moved us all out here. ‘swhy half the boxes aren’t unpacked, Mum never notices and Marlene’s always at work.”

“And because you’re always slacking,” said Marlene through the kitchen window, and Mo squeaked and zoomed off to go find a gnome to toss.

No matter who was at fault, there were still loads of moving boxes to unpack. It was easier with Hermione in the house, if she did say so herself; Mo and Mitzy might not be allowed to use their wands outside of school (Marlene scowled them into silence if they dared ask) but Hermione’s Trace was still worn to shreds, and when she wasn’t rereading _Hogwarts, A History_ she was learning household spells to unpack boxes and share dinner chores with the rest of them. Magda would come down from her room (or, more likely, up from her potions lab in the basement), blink at the pile of empty boxes by the back door, and then say, “Go, team” before going to forage for more coffee.

Hermione had never been in such a female dominated atmosphere before, and for the first week or two, she was constantly a little confused. Not because she didn’t appreciate spending time with other girls—she did, the way she appreciated having Ginny to chat with after Harry and Ron were making her miserable—but she’d never managed to _get on_ with other girls the way girls like Lavender or Parvati seemed to be able to do easy as breathing. She never quite managed to _fit_ ; she had a sneaking feeling that other girls in her era had all had some kind of special class in primary school about how to get along and talk about _female_ things, and she’d missed that day and had been left permanently wrong-footed, too swotty, too much of a know-it-all, and too—well, too _Hermione_ to really click. Even when she and Ginny had started getting along, and Ginny had added Luna to the mix, she’d always just—been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The oddest thing about Russet House, by far, was that the other shoe never dropped. She muddled along well here, amongst the McKinnons. Magda was a grown woman, a mother, younger than Mrs. Weasley had been—she blithely admitted that she had Marlene at seventeen, which put her at the very latest in her early forties—but unlike Mrs. Weasley she never fussed about Hermione’s hair being out of control, even in an affectionate way. Marlene reminded Hermione of Bill—she had that ineffable, somewhat inscrutable air of _cool_ that seemed to trail after her like perfume—but Hermione had always managed to get along with people older than her fairly well, and Marlene seemed eager to sit and chat about Arithmancy one minute and then French food the next.

Mo and Mitzy were a little harder, if only because they were younger. Hermione had little experience with younger girls aside from her prefect duties, and that had mainly been supervisory or disciplinary, occasionally speckled with bringing a crying first year to Professor McGonagall to report some truly foul sort of bullying that she herself had been victim of _her_ first year. Mo was less difficult than Mitzy; she was gregarious and _loud_ , and even if she never asked about Hermione’s injuries, what happened to her parents, or why she’d come from France (though she was obviously bursting to; Hermione caught her biting her lip and bouncing on the balls of her feet more than once when Magda or Marlene Apparated her back to St. Mungo’s for physical therapy or mind healing appointments) she was determined to learn absolutely every other thing possible about Hermione there was to know. Hermione had the feeling that Mo was going to be _very_ excited to tell everyone in Hufflepuff that _she_ knew the Beauxbatons transfer, but it wasn’t conniving, exactly. It was oddly like the sort of hero-worship that Harry had always received, and while it made her blush a little, and sometimes had the hair rising on the back of her neck like someone was staring too long, it was, she thought, well-intentioned. As for Mitzy, she was Mo’s little dark shadow, listening with big round eyes to Hermione’s stories about Beauxbatons (thank you to _An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe_ , which, upon her rereading, showed no significant differences between the universes) and occasionally interjecting with some shy question that Hermione usually realized was much cleverer than had seemed at first glance.

All in all, by the middle of August (and thus the end of her physical therapy) she’d been folded into life at Russet House without even a hiccup, and Hermione was severely unsettled by it. _They die,_ she told herself, repeatedly, as she ate dinner with the McKinnons; slept in their house; helped unpack their things; talked about France and magic with them. _They die. Death Eaters kill them. All four of them were tortured and killed in my universe before Halloween 1981._

It was hard to imagine them _dying_. It was hard to imagine them being killed when Mo whipped by on her Cleansweep with an excited whoop at five in the morning, or when Marlene turned up from her Hitwizard training in London with Cauldron Cakes and Jelly Slugs, or when Magda, in a fit of late-night brilliance, woke them all up with a shriek of triumph and insisted on showing them a burbling purple potion that she’d been working on for months. (She wouldn’t tell them what it did, what it was called, or who it was for; only insisted on showing them at two in the morning that the sheen of the steam over the cauldron was _finally_ the proper color violet, and that it finally—“fecking _finally_ ”—exuded an odor of something like strawberries.) She couldn’t remember when they’d died in her universe. Was it this year? Later, closer to 1981? Probably. The photo Professor Moody had been showing around had been taken in 1981, she thought, and— _dead two weeks after this photo was taken._ Mo would be eighteen; Mitzy, seventeen. Marlene, twenty-five. But she didn’t know exactly _when_.

_Or if it’ll happen the same way. Or at all._

She had to warn them, but she couldn’t. If she told them when, and how, they’d ask how she knew, ask things she could not—would not—answer. They were in enough danger as it was, taking precautions. She was certain—absolutely certain, now—that both Magda and Marlene were members of the Order; they had late-night meetings, sometimes, that they thought Hermione hadn’t noticed, not realizing how often Hermione lay awake at night, not commenting when she made sure there was coffee brewed the next morning. The Order had been a truly secret society, in the seventies and eighties. She knew that much from Sirius. There was no reason for a Muggleborn to know about it; especially not one that had grown up in France. She’d showed her hand with Professor Dumbledore, asked too many questions; she couldn’t alert the McKinnons too. 

Hermione fumed, and, for once, wished she had one of Fred and George’s Extendable Ears. She didn’t do well, not knowing things.

It wasn’t all housework and cooking, or she really might have gone mad. When she could, she read. Once the library was unpacked and reorganized to Magda’s satisfaction, Hermione retreated there from morning ‘til night, devouring every book she could get her hands on. Marlene didn’t ask questions when Hermione asked her to get a journal from London, only returned with a small, leatherbound notebook that regenerated pages as it was filled. Hermione added her own protective charms to it: a rune-based locking spell, one that _Alohomora_ wouldn’t work on; a Notice-Me-Not spell, to keep anyone paying attention to it; a privacy spell that wiped the words away if someone other than her opened it. She even modified the acne spell she’d used on the DA sign-up sheet, for anyone who tried to force the issue. It would, she hoped, be reduceable this time, but never _quite_ removable. She could only hope that Mo or Mitzy wouldn’t try to open it.

It started off as lists, the book. What was the same. What was different. The centerfold was a timeline, as best as she could remember, of how the First Wizarding War had played out in her world. It was sparser than she wanted to admit. She put down everything she could think of, starting with Voldemort’s announcement of himself as a new Dark Lord on the first of May, 1970— _the spring solstice_ —and ending with Voldemort’s defeat and the death of James and Lily Potter on the thirty-first of October, 1981. Eleven years was a long time, full of details she could not trace. She marked a few other big dates that she could remember—Sirius being thrown into Azkaban ( _2nd November 1981_ ); Professor Lupin going to the werewolf packs as a spy— _1979?_ —the deaths she remembered, everything, but there was still too little to truly mark. She frowned at it late at night, tapping at her lip with the tip of her quill, and added more. There were other things she didn’t know the dates of, incidents that would be important but she didn’t know _when_ they happened, _where_ they happened, who they happened to. Pettigrew’s betrayal was a glaring question mark; Sirius and Professor Lupin had never wanted to speak of it overmuch, and she understood that, but she wanted to _shake_ them, wherever they were in this world, for being so closed-mouthed about it. There was too much she didn’t _know_.

By the time August began to die, Hermione had three lists. The first was things she knew, for certain, were different in this universe. It was getting longer almost by the minute, but most of the issues were minor: things happening on a Monday instead of a Tuesday; someone traveling to Italy instead of Russia; that sort of thing. The second list was things she _didn’t_ know about—who was where when, who was a part of the Order, were they the same people, that kind of thing. And the third—the _and_ was very important—was made up of information she thought would be critical for her to keep in mind going forward. Each of these items on the third list she marked with a _laguz_ rune, for chaos, potentiality. Runes had brought her here, she thought, grimly. Runes would help her keep track of it all. It was, unfortunately, short; there were only three lines.

  1. _Voldemort declared war on the Ministry of Magic on 2nd November, 1968._



Why he’d chosen that particular day was obvious, in her mind. Solstices seemed to have power for Voldemort. He liked days with _omens_ behind them, great significance. He had in her world, and he was no different in this one. Why he’d come forward that _year_ , instead of 1970—that she could not tell. Perhaps the Squib Rights Movement had built up too much momentum, and he feared it would disrupt his opportunity to claim power. She didn’t think it would affect anything overmuch in the long run, but that meant there were two extra years she had to account for. _Or, Merlin forbid, everything would happen two years earlier._

Which would mean Harry would defeat Voldemort in 1979, not 1981.

 _If he defeated Voldemort._ Harry hadn’t even been _born_ in 1979.

She shook that thought out of her head, and moved on.

  1. _Bartemius Crouch Sr. is not a member of the Council of Magical Law as of the 17th August, 1975._



This disturbed her. Even if Crouch was a member of the DMLE, part of what had allowed the Ministry to fight back in the First Wizarding War was Crouch’s willingness to be brutal. He was an awful, horrible, _cruel_ man, and she hated him, but he’d been a good general. They’d been losing last time, and even Professor Dumbledore had admitted it. Without Crouch—she thought of Winky, and her chest ached; Winky, whose only reward for her years of loyalty had been abandonment—without Crouch, they might not survive as long as they did in her world.

She looked at the list, and then added a dash under the second line, writing, _Barty Crouch Jr.?_ She wasn’t sure if Crouch Jr. was still in Hogwarts—she kicked herself for not learning more about him in her world—but if Barty Crouch Jr. was the same in this world as he had been in hers, he was dangerous. She would have to watch him, as best she could.

Then, the third line, and, perhaps, the most important:

  1. _Albus Dumbledore is not Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot._



Why, she wasn’t sure. _How_ , she wasn’t sure. The Chief Warlock was, at this point, a man named Tamar Travers. She couldn’t find much about him, either, beyond his long stint as a member of the Council of Magical Law, but he was a _Travers_ , and that in and of itself scared her breathless. Not _the_ Travers, not the one she’d faced in the Department of Mysteries, but _a_ Travers, old blood and bigotry. Apparently Professor Dumbledore _had been_ the Chief Warlock; had been the Chief Warlock, in fact, until the previous year; but then he had stepped down in 1974, citing his position as Hogwarts Headmaster and his role in the International Confederation of Wizards as reason for his resignation. They’d tried to get him to take it back, but he’d been steadfast in his refusal, and Travers had been chosen as the only available alternative. 

It was more, she thought, than Professor Dumbledore not wanting to be Chief Warlock anymore. It meant that the law itself would be different. Professor Binns hadn’t come anywhere close to modern magical law in his History of Magic classes, but she’d read independently, interested after hearing the Beauxbatons students talking about magical law in France. Laws protecting Squibs from abuse had been enacted in 1974. Laws protecting the rights of goblins to Gringotts, too; laws outlawing Dark magic. Things that were _necessary_. Things that they, specifically, needed to win the war. And instead of Albus Dumbledore being Chief Warlock, to ensure those laws came to a vote and were passed, _it was the relative of a literal Death Eater._

 _And what exactly are you supposed to do about it?_ said a snide little voice in her head that sounded a little like Parvati Patil. _You’re sixteen. You’re a student. There’s no way anyone in the Wizengamot would listen to you._

 _Professor Dumbledore wants to know what you know,_ said another voice, this one much more like Ron—sensible, albeit a bit puzzled. _If you tell him—_

But she couldn’t. She had no way of knowing if this was even the same Albus Dumbledore. For all he’d defeated Gellert Grindelwald in this world, for all that he was a brilliant wizard, for all that he’d brought her here, to the McKinnons—she couldn’t be sure. Not yet. She couldn’t say anything until she was sure.

She had no one, at all, she could trust with any of this.

She closed the notebook, hid it under her mattress, and went to breakfast.

“Hogwarts letters turned up,” said Magda as soon as Hermione poked her nose into the kitchen. Mitzy, true to form, was asleep with her head settled beside her bowl of oatmeal. For a twelve-year-old, Mitzy slept more than the rest of them put together. Nobody else seemed to be particularly concerned about it. Hermione wondered if it was something that had happened after Hogwarts, or if she’d just always slept through everything. “There’s one for you.”

Hermione blinked. Sure enough, there was an envelope sitting on the table by her plate of eggs, addressed _Ms. Hermione Granger, Russet House, Kenwyn_ in Professor McGonagall’s sharp, no-nonsense handwriting. Hermione eased her way down into her chair, careful not to sit on the Orbis Sanguis—she never left it out of her sight, not wanting Mitzy or Mo to stumble on it accidentally and be pulled somewhere they didn’t wish to be—and opened the letter with her butter knife.

_Dear Ms. Granger,_

_We are pleased to inform you that your transfer to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has been successfully completed. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books, equipment, and materials you will require._

_Term begins on 1st September._

_Please note that on 1st September at 9:00am you are hereby requested to report promptly to the Deputy Headmistress’s office for a transfer orientation and placement seminar._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_  
Deputy Headmistress and Head of Gryffindor House  
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Well, at least some things didn’t change. Hermione pulled out the list.

_Fifth year students will require:_

“Fifth?” said Mo, peering over her shoulder and frowning. She had a bit of bean stuck to the corner of her lip, and Hermione tapped the corner of her own mouth to draw attention to it. “I thought you were sixteen.”

“Beauxbatons teaches things differently, dear,” said Magda absently, pouring over her well-annotated and very scribbled on copy of _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_. “It’s probably provisional until they figure out where to place you.”

Hermione certainly hoped so. As much as she enjoyed tests, she didn’t think she could survive doing OWLs twice in two years, back to back.

_Three (3) sets of plain work robes (black)_

_One (1) set of dress robes (any color)_

_One (1) plain pointed hat (black) for day wear_

_Damn,_ thought Hermione. _I thought they’d get rid of that._

_One (1) pair of protective gloves (dragon hide preferred)_

_One (1) winter cloak (black, with silver fastenings)_

“You’ll need more than one,” said Marlene. She was dressed in her Ministry robes, all scarlet with silver trim. It made her look very adult, Hermione thought, and _very_ dangerous. Like a proper Hitwizard. “If you tear your winter cloak you’ll suffer all year, it’s bloody cold up there.”

“No it isn’t,” said Mitzy, abruptly reviving when Magda shoved a mug of coffee at her. She inhaled the steam, and then added, “You just get cold easily, like your papa.”

Marlene destroyed her dangerous image by sticking her tongue out at her little sister.

_All fifth-year students should also have a copy of the following:_

_The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 5) by Miranda Goshawk_

_Dark Spells for Dark Minds by Herman Cassell_

_The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble_

_Intermediate Transfiguration by Emeric Switch_

_One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore_

_A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot_

_The Decline of Pagan Magic by Bathilda Bagshot_

_Magical Drafts and Potions_ _by Arsenius Jigger_

_Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions by Derek Fenza_

_The Healer’s Helpmate by H. Pollingtonious_

_Magical Hieroglyphs and Logograms by Fatima Khan_

_Numerology and Grammatica by Ingrid Ciesielski_

_Spellman’s Syllabary, 12th Ed. by Rosana Amorim_

_Other equipment:_

_One (1) wand_

_One (1) cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)_

_Three (3) sets of glass or crystal phials_

_One (1) telescope_

_One (1) mathematical compass_

_One (1) set of brass or silver scales_

_Students may also bring an Owl OR a Cat OR a Toad. Other pets accepted on a case by case basis._

“Brilliant,” said Marlene, leaning over to see the list. “I have most of those, you can just borrow them. Mo and Mitzy won’t need them until after you graduate, so feel free to do what you want to them.”

Hermione stared at the list with a sinking stomach. She couldn’t afford half of these, she was sure. She knew, logically, that the McKinnons were paying for her over the summer, but— _is this what Ron felt like?_ She’d never considered it this way before. It made her guts ache. _I can’t possibly afford dress robes._ “Beauxbatons didn’t require half these books.”

“Beauxbatons isn’t as good as Hogwarts,” said Mo, sounding a little smug. “Everyone knows that.” She stole Hermione’s list and looked it over. “Why do _you_ need dress robes? What’s going on? Why don’t Mitzy and me need them?”

“For the Yule Ball, genius,” said Mitzy. “Only fourth years and up, how do you not _know_ that?”

“It’s not Quidditch,” said Mo.

“Fangs away, girls,” said Magda, and opened a letter of her own. “Long list this year, though. And I expect once you finish your transfer orientation you might need to switch some other books around, if you’ve already finished certain things.”

Hermione realized, abruptly, that she didn’t even have a trunk. “Oh.”

“I’ll shove my sixth year books on you too, then,” said Marlene. “And you can have my old trunk if you like. It’ll be nice to see it all get used. Besides, gives me more space on my bookshelves. _Don’t you dare_.”

This last to Mitzy’s cat, Natasha, who had jumped up on the counter when none of them were looking to try and hook a sausage out of the pan. Natasha froze, blinked with large green eyes, and then bolted back off the counter and up the stairs with her tail at an offended angle.

“Your bloody cat, Mitzy,” said Marlene. Mitzy roused enough to make a rude gesture at her sister, which Magda didn’t notice. 

“We’ll have to head for Diagon Alley for some of that lot, anyway,” said Magda. She opened another letter, and skimmed it. “Mo and Mitzy can’t share their books again, not after last year.”

“It’s not _my_ fault it caught on fire,” said Mitzy, and stabbed a tomato with her fork.

“It’s no one’s _fault_ , but I’d rather not have to get that letter again. Besides, Hermione needs a wand.”

“She _has_ a wand, Mum.”

“It’s a loaner,” said Magda, absently. “Not good enough for anything beyond simple charms. Marlene, one thing—Slughorn’s written me, asked if I’d be interested in taking on an apprentice in a few years. Named a boy at Hogwarts. Severus Snape?”

Hermione fumbled her mug of tea, and almost spilled it down her blouse. Thankfully, no one noticed.

“—know anything about him?” said Magda. “Apparently Slughorn thinks he’s quite clever, and he doesn’t say that about a lot of people.”

“Yeah, he’s clever,” said Marlene, “but he’s also a fecking cunt.”

“Judas priest,” said Magda. “Watch your mouth.”

“Yeah, Marlene, watch your mouth,” said Mo. Or rather, that was what it sounded like. Her mouth was so full of egg, Hermione could have been wrong. Magda frowned at her.

“Swallow before you speak, Mo.”

“He _is_ , Mum,” said Marlene. “Spends all his time reading about the Dark Arts, palling around with half the blood purists in school—I don’t care if he’s brilliant, I wouldn’t feel safe having him in the house. And you,” Marlene added, and jabbed at Hermione with a forkful of fried tomato. “He’ll probably be in your year, you keep away from him. He looks like a great bloody bat, you can’t miss him.”

“He’s _fifteen years old_ ,” said Magda, with a look like a rolling thunderstorm. “I’ll reserve judgment on the lad until I meet him, thank you _very_ much, Marlene. Mo, _swallow that food_ before you say another word.”

Mo swallowed with audible effort, and said, “Marlene’s right though, Mum. Snape’s a right git.”

“ _Thank you_ , Morgana.” Magda took a sip of her coffee. “Either way, it’d not be a problem for any of you. _If_ I take an apprentice, I’ll thoroughly vet them beforehand. I’m not a fool, thank you very much. And I would _hope_ —” she looked very hard at Marlene “—that in spite of everything in the world going mad at the moment you would still be able to give a _fifteen-year-old boy_ the benefit of the doubt.”

Marlene huffed, and stabbed her sausage so hard Hermione worried about her plate.

“We might as well hit Diagon Alley today, to be honest,” said Magda, as if nothing had happened. “I need to get a new bottle of gurdyroot, and besides, we’ll need to go a bit early to beat the crowds, especially if Hermione’s going to get her new wand today. I don’t know who Albus has managed to find to teach Defense this year, but if they’re asking for these sorts of books, we’ll need to get to Blotts and Flourishes before they’re sold out—Herman Cassell’s a hard author to find on the best of days, he’s too Grey for most people, and if the whole school’s thundering to get a copy of _Dark Spells for Dark Minds_ we’re going to need to put bells on.”

Mitzy gulped down half her eggs, and said, “Can we stop at the pet shop, Mum? I want to get a book on kneazles, for Natasha—”

“If we’re quick about it, I don’t see why not, but we can’t stick around, you know how dangerous Diagon Alley is lately—”

“ _Mum_ , it’s not like some blood purist is going to jump out of Knockturn Alley and kidnap us—”

“Don’t you _dare_ joke about that, Morgana Marilyn—”

“I’m serious, Hermione,” said Marlene in a low voice. She looked at her mother, and then leaned closer to Hermione to keep the conversation private. “Snape’s dangerous. That whole lot are, Avery and Mulciber and all their mates. I would be surprised if most of them weren’t already Death Eaters. You-Know-Who doesn’t mind taking ‘em young, and half of Slytherin worships the ground he walks on. You’ll need to be careful.”

 _Professor Dumbledore trusts him_. It was on the tip of her tongue. Hermione swallowed. “I can take care of myself.”

“Not if it’s ten against one, you can’t,” said Marlene. She looked grim, her eyebrows joining in one long stern line. “I was safe cause I’m half-blood, same with Mitzy and Mo, and Dumbledore and the other professors do everything they can, but things can still happen. Don’t ever turn your back on anyone you don’t trust. Promise me.”

Hermione nodded. The Orbis Sanguis pressed hard into the back of her jeans. “I promise.”

“Finish your food, ladies,” said Magda. “We’ll have to use Floo Powder, and you know how I hate that.”

Diagon Alley felt different than Hermione remembered. It wasn’t that it _was_ different—the Leaky Cauldron was the same, Tom the barman was the same, the building, even the paintings—but there was an air of haste and desperation hanging over everything that made her jumpy. “Right,” Magda said, and looked at the three of them, Hermione and Mitzy and Mo. “We’ll split up in teams. We want to get this done quickly, so please, Mitzy, _do not_ hang about in Blotts and Flourishes any longer than you have to. The books on the shelves are more than likely available at Hogwarts, and if they’re not, you can write to the shopkeeper and he can send them on to you.”

Mitzy frowned, but said, “Okay, Mum.”

“Hermione, you take Mo and start on the far end.” Magda gave Hermione a long look. “You stay safe, both of you. Anything seems odd, get into a shop and tell the shopkeeper _immediately_. Keep your eye out for anything strange. We’ll meet up at Fortescue’s in two hours—I think that should be enough time—and then go home. Any questions?”

“Yeah,” said Mo. “Reg is going to be here later today with his brother, he wanted to meet up at the bookshop at noon, is that okay?”

Mitzy’s eyes lit up.

“After you check in,” said Magda. “And only if everything seems all right.”

“Mum, it’s _Reg_ , it’ll be fine—”

“Don’t argue with me, Morgana.” Magda looked at Hermione. “I suggest you start at Ollivander’s, get your wand done. That way you don’t have to worry about spells going wrong. That—” she handed Hermione a wallet “—should be enough to cover a new wand and the robes you’ll need.”

“Magda—”

“Don’t argue,” said Magda again. “We can help, and we’re happy to. Mo will show you where everything is, Hermione, and _you’ll_ make sure—” this to Hermione “—that Mo gets her robes adjusted. She’s growing too fast for them.”

“They’re fine, Mum.”

“I can see your ankles when you wear them, my girl. That’s too short.”

“Right,” said Hermione, more to head Mo off from arguing than anything. “We can do that.”

“Excellent,” said Magda. “Mitzy, we’ll start at the potion supply. Meet back here in two hours.”

Mo snapped a salute, linked her arm through Hermione’s, and tugged her off towards Ollivander’s.

Despite everything that was different about Diagon Alley, and everything foreign and strange, Ollivander’s was exactly as she remembered. There was the single wand on a dusty purple cushion in the filthy front window; when they opened the door, there was the narrow hallway and the single, rickety chair that was stacked high with long, thin boxes. Mo sneezed three times in quick succession when the door shut behind them, and looked up at Hermione with eyes that were a little like golden saucers.

“Blow your nose,” said Hermione sternly, but it came out soft. Somehow everything was dampened in Ollivander’s shop—the sounds from outside were barely audible, and it felt wrong to do more than whisper. Mo made a face at her, but she took the handkerchief Hermione offered and blew her nose with a noise like a trumpet before shoving it into the pocket of her own cloak.

“Ah,” said a voice, and Hermione looked up. Mr. Ollivander was standing at the very top of a very tall ladder, his funny silver eyes peering down at them like something out of a fairy tale. He looked, she thought, a little hungry. “You again, Miss McKinnon. Spruce wood and phoenix feather, nine inches, exceptionally bendy—it’s only been two years, what on earth have you done to it?”

“Nothing!” Mo, to Hermione’s great surprise, ducked behind her. Since Mo was almost her height, it really didn’t do much good. “I didn’t do anything to it, it’s fine.”

Mr. Ollivander looked down at them for a moment longer, and then clambered down the ladder with the agility of a monkey. He peered at them both, and then focused harder on Hermione, looking her up and down. “Ah,” he said, after a moment. “Who are you?”

Hermione looked at him in silence, and then squeaked, “Hermione Granger, sir.”

“Miss Granger,” said Ollivander, and snapped his fingers. The little measuring tape leapt to do his bidding. “This way, then, you two.”

The measuring tape did not stop in its relentless work. Mo looked, Hermione thought, as if she wanted to perch on the edge of the rickety chair, but one look from Mr. Ollivander had her stumbling away from it to peer at the dusty vase of peacock feathers instead. Satisfied, Mr. Ollivander vanished back into the depths of his shop to collect boxes. Hermione touched the oak wand in her back pocket, and then settled in to wait.

“You,” said Mr. Ollivander, when he returned. He was carrying at least a dozen boxes along with him, so many that Hermione shifted in surprise. He had not brought nearly so many back the first time she’d visited him. She’d only had to test three wands. “Yes, Dumbledore told me about you.”

His odd silver eyes gleamed, as if waiting for her to speak.

“My wand was—lost,” said Hermione, brittle. “I wanted to see if another would work better—”

“Then that loaner? Eight inches, English oak, dragon heartstring, quite unyielding, originally made for quite a different person, if I recall correctly—stop that,” he told the tape measure, and it wilted to the floor. He offered a box. “No, quite unsuitable for you, Dumbledore should have known better—this one, holly and unicorn hair, very springy, try—” 

Hermione only brushed her fingers over the handle before he clapped the box shut.

“Absolutely not,” he said, and took three other boxes down off the shelves. “Now, this one, maybe—yew and dragon heartstring, very clever, this one, perhaps—”

But this one, too, she only brushed with her fingertips before the box snapped shut.

They went through the whole stack. Then he went and found another dozen, and went through that stack as well. Hermione bit her tongue on the eighteenth attempt, bursting on _my wand was vine, vine and dragon heartstring, not pear_ , but she couldn’t _say_ that. So she took it, and waved it, and when a gust of cold air built into a cloud over her head and began to rain, she honestly could not say she was surprised. Mo smothered a giggle behind her hand.

“Sorry,” she said, when Hermione glared. “Only—your hair—”

“I’ll do you next,” said Hermione darkly, and Mo simply laughed harder.

It took another ten minutes or so of different wands, different accidents, before Mr. Ollivander paused, halfway up a ladder. He looked—not angry, exactly, but nor did he look happy, the way he did when he paired a particularly difficult match. Instead he looked almost absently curious, as if something had occurred to him that should have been obvious, but he did not particularly like the thought.

“Wait here,” he said, and slid down the ladder to vanish into the depths of his store.

Hermione put the latest attempt down—“ _laurel wood and phoenix feather, quite whippy, Miss Granger_ ”—and shifted her wet hair out of her eyes.

Mr. Ollivander returned covered in dust. He blew more off the box—old, she thought; the date of manufacture on the side read _23 April 1945_ —and set it quite carefully on the counter in front of her, pulling off the lid.

Hermione could not stop herself from gasping. It was _her wand_. _Her_ wand, her vine and dragon heartstring wand, carved with delicate ivy patterns and vibrating quietly against the soft purple velvet as if it had been waiting. She could not breathe, for a moment. Her eyes filled with tears. When she looked up at Mr. Ollivander, he looked back at her with his silver eyes gleaming like coins. She had the unsettling feeling, sinking deep into her skin, that Mr. Ollivander knew exactly why she was struggling not to cry. Mo, on the other hand, looked highly unnerved.

“Go on,” said Mr. Ollivander, and Hermione reached out, and brushed her fingers against the wood. It was warm on her skin, and it fit into her palm the way it always had. The way it was _supposed_ to, some silly romantic notion insisted, but she held it and she breathed and when she pointed it at the vase of peacock feathers and turned them all into deep purple roses, she felt safe for the first time since she’d woken in St. Mungo’s.

“There,” said Mr. Ollivander, and smiled a little. “That, I think, is that.”

Hermione smiled back.


	5. Dark Marks and Dark Minds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAJOR CW FOR THIS CHAPTER. THE DEATH EATERS WERE NOT PLEASANT OR KIND. SPECIFIC CWs INCLUDE:  
> \--swearing  
> \--discussion of dead bodies  
> \--discussion of decomposition of dead bodies  
> \--vomiting  
> \--specially designed spells to make bodies melt (yes, I went there)  
> \--blood/mentions of violence  
> \--enhanced deterioration  
> \--sadism  
> \--mentions of sexual assault of children
> 
> ALL of these are in the first big chunk of the chapter, so if you scroll down to the:  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> piece then you should be free from reading it if none of that is your cup of tea. 
> 
> Other general CW includes: description of a panic attack. 
> 
> We're in Hogwarts, y'all!! And again, all credit to the beauteous runakvaed for the character aesthetic!!

Crawley was puking.

Amelia brushed dust and dirt off her robes, and took in Number 29 York Circle, Tewkesbury. It looked, she thought, like a regular little northern cottage; heavy stone, narrow, old-fashioned windows, and a door with a knocker shaped like a gryphon. The only indication that it belonged to wizards was the Snargaluff plant under the sitting room window, which squatted very unattractively between a pair of incredibly ugly ceramic garden gnomes.

Well, that and the Dark Mark.

They’d come up with a countercurse to bring the Dark Mark down in the early days of the war, but Death Eaters, of course, had been trying to combat it for years. This one seemed to be a new version of the Dark Mark that wasn’t responding to the usual Banishing spells; the snake was still writhing in the air above the cottage, long and vile, a poisonous green. It hissed at Amelia as she came closer, and the sound pressed in on her like something physical, weighing at her shoulders.

“Get that bloody thing down,” she said to one of the younger Aurors. She might not be _too_ far out of Auror training, but she had more experience and less nonsense than any of the new recruits. And, she thought, rubbing absently at her shoulder, the scars to prove it. “The Obliviation team has been waiting for the better part of an hour, why is it still up?”

“Something new in the spells,” said the new Auror, and looked at her anxiously. “Bones, are you—”

“Fine.” She scowled. The trunk she’d fallen into—one of the investigative Twelve-Storeys that opened up and descended into an Extension Charm, built for crime scenes—had been left in the middle of a worn stone path leading up to the half-open front door. “Who left this fucking thing in the middle of the path for people to Apparate into?”

“Sorry,” said Crawley. He Vanished his vomit, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Sorry, I—I dropped it.”

Amelia’s eyebrows snapped together, and drew her wand. “ _Dropped it_? There are crystal phials in this that are over a hundred years old—”

“I know but—the _smell_ —”

“That’s _death_ , boy,” said Moody in a loud voice, “and it’s a sad bloody day for the Auror initiative if even the newest, mollycoddled little trainees can’t handle the smell of a little death, get your face out of my sight before—” 

Crawley squeaked and vanished almost immediately. Crawley had been in her year of Auror training, but he’d had to study for another full year after Amelia had graduated; he’d failed his Interrogation course. They were separated by two years of fieldwork, now; Crawley had gone into a desk job until about three months ago, while Amelia had gone right into investigations with Alastor Moody hovering at her shoulder. Amelia looked askance at Moody, and then kicked the Trunk closed again before casting a quiet levitation charm. There were no Muggles out on this street, and even if there were, the number of charms that they’d cast on this place to Disillusion it would have made any Muggle get a migraine if they even thought of peeking at the little cottage on York Circle. The shielding spells, unfortunately, had an odd effect in diluting sunlight; outside of the shields, it was bright daylight, but inside it was a grey sort of twilight that made her feel as though she’d been awake for too long. The Dark Mark cast a dim glow of its own, over it all; pale green, like the bottom of a lake. When Amelia turned to Moody, he had his wand on her. Amelia, grimly pleased, stared back at him.

“Last thing I told Amelia Bones before her graduation,” he said.

Amelia said, “That I need to be ready to hex them in the back. Last thing I said to Alastor Moody before his forced vacation?”

Moody glared at her, but said, through gritted teeth: “That I should take in some sun.”

“And you should,” said Amelia shortly, and put her wand back in its holster. “You look like a gargoyle.”

“Part of my charm,” said Moody. He glared at Crawley’s retreating back. “Dunno what the idiot was expecting, signing on to this squad. Fairy lights, a few fancy duels, and rescuing damsels, maybe.”

“I don’t think he’s that stupid.” Amelia shifted the Trunk out of the path. “He’s just soft.”

“Soft,” scoffed Moody. “No time for _soft_. What the devil’s the matter with you?”

Amelia scowled at him. “What do you want, you old badger? Having a go at me, now? Minchum make you that angry putting you in charge of your own squad?”

Moody whacked her in the knee with his walking stick. Amelia stepped over it before it could strike home—she’d learned after the third day working with Moody in training—and kept walking until she reached the front stoop of the cottage. The Trunk was _probably_ all right to let be, she reasoned; and if it wasn’t, it’d be coming out of Crawley’s paycheck, not hers.

“You look like you’ve smelled something nasty,” said Moody.

“He wasn’t wrong,” she said. “This one’s vile. I could smell it from back there.”

Moody scowled at her. “Yeah, well, it’s kids. Happens with kids. You know the spells they cast.”

She did know the spells they cast. Spells used to dim hope. Spells used to enhance rot. Spells used to melt bones and ensure that fat and tissue broke down and soaked into floors, so that the stain never came out. Especially with kids.

“Something’s wrong with you,” said Moody. For one insane moment, she wondered if he was worried about her. Then he said, “If you’re off your head, you’ll be useless if a fight breaks out,” and she rolled her eyes again. Moody rolled his back at her, and the magical one stayed facing away from her, staring out the back of his head.

“What do you even see when you do that?” Amelia asked, curious. “Your brain or just the back of your skull?”

“If I look at it,” said Moody, and whacked her with his walking stick again. This time, though, it was a little gentler. Still hard enough to bruise, but nothing that would break her. “You puke like Crawley, you’re off the force.”

“Why don’t you go stare at your brain for a while,” said Amelia, and pushed past Shacklebolt into the cottage.

The stench was worse inside. In the yard, she could smell it, but it wasn’t overpowering. Here, it was an assault. Rot took root in her nose and mouth and stayed there, blood and swollen flesh and filth. The interior walls were shredded as if someone had taken a blade to them. Amelia stepped around a pool of blood in the front hall, marked with a glowing number _1_ in the air above it, and said, “Whose?”

“Mother’s,” grunted Moody.

“Where are the bodies?”

“Living room.”

Amelia blinked. “They’re not at the office?”

“We’re trying to figure out how to move them without bits falling off,” said Moody shortly, and limped off into another room without another word. Amelia didn’t follow him. If he wanted her to go with him, he would have said something, or, more likely, stopped and snapped at her when she didn’t automatically follow. Besides—she was the junior Auror between the pair of them. She had other things to do.

There were four bodies laid out in precise lines on the living room carpet. Amelia thought that at one point, the carpet had been a nice shade of ivory. Now it was almost black with blood, and the bodies—two small, two large; most likely parents and children—seemed to be trembling on the verge of falling apart. One of the Crime Scene Wizards, a woman named Paige, nodded at Amelia as she came in, and went back to waving her wand over the corpses.

“They’re deteriorating faster than we can stabilize,” said Paige, and swore under her breath when one of the little bodies gave a shudder, like it was still breathing. Half its face suddenly caved in. “Apparently they looked quite normal, albeit dead, when the dad came back to find them. It was only once he looked at them that this—tripe started up.”

“The father’s here?”

“He’s in St. Mungo’s for the shock,” said Paige shortly. “He’s half. Wife was Muggleborn. Kids were mixed-blood.”

Amelia nodded, and crouched beside the second largest form. It wasn’t the first family of Muggleborns that had been murdered. It most likely wouldn’t be the last. “This one?”

“Teenage daughter.”

Paige went back to work. Amelia studied the bodies, their hair—one of them, the youngest one, had been blonde, and the tips of their hair were still unstained by blood and decaying matter—before standing and finding a photo on the fireplace mantel. There were five people in it, sure enough: the father looked a little foreign, if only in the deep darkness of his eyes, but he was beaming, and his arms were around his very blonde, Nordic wife and their very blonde, Nordic children as if he held his whole world close to him in that moment. He kept kissing his wife’s hair in the photograph. The daughter looked about fourteen. The other two, maybe six or seven. Twins; one boy, one girl.

Amelia put the photograph down, and went to hunt around.

They’d been asleep when the Death Eaters had broken through their wards. The twins slept in the same room. One of them had pink sheets; the other, green. The green-sheeted bed was spattered with blood. Amelia nodded at the CSW testing it, and watched until the diagnostic spell the man cast turned violet. There was a small stuffed rabbit still waiting at the head of the bloody bed, as if set aside in a moment of carelessness. Her heart knotted up in her throat.

“Bag that,” she said, pointing her wand at the rabbit. The CSW looked at her in surprise.

“Why?”

“Emotional traces.”

The CSW nodded, and Amelia moved to the next room.

This one, she thought, must have been the teenager’s. There was a poster of a Muggle band— _why would they name their band after a royal wife?_ —and the room was layered all over with Ravenclaw colors. Even the curtains were blue and bronze. The mirror, when Amelia passed, said, “Your hair looks a right wreck, dearie,” but other than that there didn’t seem to be much disturbance. Just the sheets and blankets pushed back in the girl’s haste to get out of bed.

 _Mother was downstairs,_ she thought, and when she poked her head into the master bedroom and found the bed made neatly, she nodded to herself. _Probably screamed. Kids came running._ And—

She cast a diagnostic spell of her own at the top of the staircase, and the railing glowed yellow. Someone had cast a Shield Charm from up here. Probably the daughter, she thought. Trying to protect her mother. Which meant there’d been a duel, but not much of a one. They’d been relying on their wards.

“Where’s the husband work?” she called down the stairs, and Moody, not Paige, stumped out of the living room to scowl at her.

“Ministry.”

“Which division?”

“Misuse of Muggle Artifacts.”

 _Poor bastard._ She’d not been at the Ministry long enough to know everyone on sight, let alone someone who worked in the Civil Division, but if he’d been a Ministry wizard— “What’d he say about the Death Eaters?”

Moody’s magical eye rolled around in his head, and then fixed on her. “Called them cowards,” said Moody. “Bloody fucking cowards.”

 _And now this_. Amelia nodded, and cracked her neck absently before heading up to inspect the attic.

It was with her robes dusty again and with a splinter throbbing in her forefinger—the ladder up to the attic had been incredibly rickety—that she came back downstairs to find that the bodies had been stabilized enough for transport. How Paige had done it, she had no idea. When they floated past her out the door and down into the Trunk, she wondered if they might burst, but they held. “Someone else’s problem now,” said Paige, grimly, and dusted her hands off in accomplishment. She looked pleased with herself, if revolted. Amelia crossed her arms on the front stoop, and nodded. “Mix of Permanent Sticking Charms and cooking spells, I really don’t think it’ll hold beyond the next hour but at least that’s long enough to get them back to headquarters.”

“Same wand as the others,” said Amelia to Moody, and Moody nodded at her.

“How can you tell?”

 _I’m not in training anymore_ , she thought, but dutifully replied: “Spells used on the little boy. Violet means Cruciatus, but the blood left behind means physical or sexual assault. The combination means it’s Ripper.”

They didn’t have _names_ for Death Eaters, not exactly. They had code-names. Moody had his theories about the identities of a few of them, but Moody was a suspicious bastard even by Amelia’s standards, and they couldn’t exactly go around accusing high-ranking members of pureblooded Wizengamot families without more than his instincts as proof. So they went off of magical signatures instead. _Ripper_ was one. Ripper tended to focus on children, and, true to their name—she did not put it past some of the women in pureblooded families not to be this cruel—they had a tendency to tear with their bare hands. But not, she thought, like a werewolf. She’d visited werewolf attacks—Greyback had been more active than usual lately—and there was a kind of mindlessness to wolf attacks that this did not have. Ripper’s actions were _purposeful_.

Though then again, she thought, Greyback was also purposeful in his own way. But Greyback could no longer use magic, and Ripper clearly did, so Ripper had to be someone else.

“Who else?” grunted Moody. Amelia frowned.

“Maybe Hatchback. The bodies were too decomposed when I saw them to tell, but the blood spatter on the staircase said Cutting Curses. And then the wardbreaker, whoever they are; Ripper can’t break wards, he’s not good enough with delicate spells.” She eyed Moody. “Am I forgetting someone?”

Moody did not deign to answer back to her sauce. “I have to go report to Minchum. You go with the bodies.”

“Alastor,” said Amelia, as Moody went to Disapparate. Moody turned, and cocked both bushy eyebrows at her. “The father was Ministry. If the Ministry wards don’t work anymore—”

Moody nodded once, slowly. He didn’t respond. There wasn’t anything to say. _If Ministry wards don’t work anymore_ , Amelia thought, _is anyone safe_?

“Don’t tell anyone about the wards yet,” said Moody. “Not until we’re sure.”

“I know.”

“Then stop badgering me and take that lot back to headquarters,” he said, and then Disapparated with a crack like a shotgun. Amelia rubbed her hands together, ignoring the sting of the splinter in her finger, and then drew her wand. They had to get the Dark Mark down before anyone could be properly Obliviated, and it was time someone sensible had a go at taking Voldemort’s filthy signature out of the sky.

.

.

.

“I’ve heard a lot of stories about wand matches,” said Mo, still giving Hermione odd looks, “but I’ve never heard of anyone _crying_ when they found their wand.”

“Oh, shut up,” said Hermione. 

The rest of the Diagon Alley trip had gone rather well. Madame Malkin’s had been quieter than Hermione had anticipated, giving her a chance to get her face cleaned up before standing on the stool so the woman could measure her new school robes properly, and they’d even been able to give Mo ten minutes in Quality Quidditch Supplies cooing over the new racing broom—Hermione thought of Harry and Ron staring at a Firebolt in the window, and her throat closed up—before meeting Magda and Mitzy at Fortescue’s at the end of the requisite two hours. From there it had been a prompt turn-around to Blotts and Flourishes (which still made Hermione’s skin itch— _was nothing sacred?_ ) to collect schoolbooks. Mitzy already had her nose deep in a book on proper kneazle training and care, and Hermione didn’t have the heart to tell her that a) she’d read it and b) the overall conclusion was that kneazles couldn’t be trained, but rather, reasoned with, and it was difficult to develop an argument that a kneazle would accept.

“I’m just saying,” said Mo, as she took down a copy of _The Problem With Pixies: Pugilence and Pugnacity_ and opened it to a random page. “It’s a little weird.”

“My last wand was vine, too,” said Hermione, and Mo shut her mouth. She’d at least stopped dropping not-so-subtle dangling modifiers to try and get Hermione to fill in the blank about what had happened to her in _France_ , but it hadn’t stopped her from poking her nose in. _Is that what we were like?_ Hermione fumed, and put a copy of _Facing the Faceless_ back onto the shelf. _What horrible little children the three of us were._

That was unfair. Mo was a sweet thing, just a little nosy. It’d been Hermione, she thought, who’d been a horrid child. She’d had more interest in chatting about physics with university professors at eight years old than she had actually speaking to children her own age, and things hadn’t improved overmuch ever since.

“Well, you know what they say,” said Mo. “ _Wand of vine, mind divine_.”

“ _What_?”

“Have you never heard that? _Rowan gossips, chestnut drones, ash is stubborn, hazel moans_? People say it all the time.”

“Maybe Aunt _Fran_ says it all the time,” Mitzy said darkly from the top of the aisle, still deep into her book on kneazles.

“No, I hear it at Hogwarts too,” said Mo, stubborn. “Like— _wand of elder, never prosper._ And the compatibility thing, like how if you’ve a willow wand you should never date someone with a wand of fir because they’ll overwhelm you—”

“Well, that’s just Divination,” said Hermione. “And Divination is nonsense.”

“Is not! I’ve heard that lots of people make prophecies that really do come true—”

“Prophecies are Prophecies,” said Hermione, and shut her mind to the image of a glowing crystal ball, full of smoke. “Divination is just hoping your tea leaves don’t turn out to look like a dung beetle.”

Mitzy snorted.

“Oh, you’re going to be in bloody Ravenclaw with her, aren’t you—both of you are just—oh, there’s Reg.” Mo turned to Hermione, a grin tugging at her lips, as a boy with dark hair came in the front door and went on his toes to peer through the stacks. “Can I—”

“Stay in the store or your mum will kill us both,” said Hermione.

Mo gleamed at her, flung her arms around Hermione—Hermione wheezed—and then zoomed off to tackle the dark-haired boy around the neck. Hermione sighed, and turned a corner into a different aisle so her heart didn’t ache too badly.

Magda, magnanimously, had granted Mo a good ninety minutes to spend time with her friend Reg, but had also made it clear that since they’d all come to Diagon Alley together, they would all be _leaving_ together. It gave Hermione an opportunity to pick through books she didn’t have access to at Russet House, and for that she was grateful, but it was still odd and painful to be in a Diagon Alley that she didn’t—couldn’t—quite recognize. Even Flourish and Blotts— _Blotts and Flourishes_ —was laid out differently than it had been in her world. It’d taken her a good ten minutes to find the section on modern magical history and politics, and while she supposed it was good for her cover not to know where anything was, it still annoyed her mightily.

It was probably better this way, she thought. Nobody could suspect her of having been here before, if _she_ hadn’t even been here before. Hermione settled on the floor, careful of her leg—it was much stronger now, didn’t hurt at all, but she still wanted to be careful about it; the notion of breaking her leg just by falling to the ground wasn’t something she’d forget in a hurry—and pulled out _The Dark Arts of the Twentieth Century_ to pick through.

She would be leaving for Hogwarts in less than two weeks, and for the first time in her life, she would not be meeting Harry or Ron on the train. She’d been thinking about it for days now, but having the letter in her hands had made it _real_ , and she still wasn’t certain how exactly it was making her feel. Lost, she supposed, paging through _Tales from the Wizarding World War_ by Theseus Scamander and then setting it on top of her pile of titles to remember. She would be going to Hogwarts, but it would not be _her_ Hogwarts. It would not be the place where she felt safe and at home; the first place in the world where she hadn’t felt as though she were crammed into shoes that were too small. Muggleborns might not always have been _accepted_ in the wizarding world, but at least in the wizarding world she’d known what she was: a witch, clever and bright, the friend of Harry Potter, a seeker of truth, a _person_. Without Harry and Ron, would it even be Hogwarts?

 _Be sensible._ She stood, slowly, and collected her books. _Hogwarts is Hogwarts._ Hogwarts had always been strange and unknowable and magical and _perfect_. Even if it was completely different from what she remembered, Hogwarts would still be the same, because it’d always had a mind of its own. She was the thing that was different.

Her heart ached. She closed her eyes, counting backwards from thirty. By the time she reached ten, her heartbeat had slowed. Five, and she didn’t quite feel like crying anymore. Close, but not quite.

_You can do this._

“Oh,” said a voice, and Hermione jumped. Half her stack of books went toppling down onto the floor. The boy swore under his breath, and crouched next to her to help pick them back up, his ratty trainers edging out from underneath the hem of his robes. “Bloody hell, I’m sorry—”

“It was my fault—”

“I scared you—”

“It’s _fine_ —”

“—sorry,” said the boy again, a bit breathlessly, and Hermione finally looked at his face.

It was the eyes, she thought, more than anything, that made her recognize him. His voice was different—lighter, albeit still deep and even, a good teaching voice, she’d always thought. Twenty fewer years of transformations made a difference. The scars were different, too; rawer, redder, more obvious against his pale skin, which in and of itself was much less worn; he had fewer lines around his eyes and mouth, fewer wrinkles in his forehead. His eyes, though, were the same. Same color, same shape. Just less sad, she thought, staring at him in shock. Remus Lupin blinked at her, still crouched with half her books in his arms, and then flushed blotchy under his freckles, looking away from her at the shelves around them. 

“Sorry,” he said a third time. He stood, still holding onto her books, and shuffled them around into a stack, holding them out. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

His accent was stronger too, she realized. Much more Welsh than she remembered. The Professor Lupin of her time had had a little more London in his tone. Hermione straightened, ignoring the whine from her recently healed leg, and took her books from him, carefully. “You didn’t,” she said again, and he glanced at her from under his bangs. His hair needed a trim, she thought, and pursed her lips. Even teenage Professor Lupin didn’t do a good enough job taking care of himself. The hairstyles of the seventies aside, it was too long and too ragged. “I startle easily. And I was thinking.”

Professor Lupin— _Lupin,_ she told herself; he wasn’t a professor yet, just a boy, and, it seemed, a bit of a shy one—peeked at her again through his bangs. Then he shook them out of his eyes, the way a dog would. Instead of nodding, or walking away, he said, “You’ve, um. You’ve sparks in your hair.”

Hermione clenched her teeth, and swore. It was a curse she’d heard not from Ron, but from Fred Weasley, and it made Lupin’s eyes pop. It took clenching her wand in her pocket and measuring her breathing to get the sparks to die away, and by the end of it, Lupin looked more amused than startled. He was still watching her intently, though why, she had no idea. “Now _I’m_ sorry,” she said, and looked down at the cover of _Tales from the Wizarding World War._ Thankfully, none of the sparks had singed the binding. “I used to be better about not doing that.”

“’sall right. Was probably my fault.” Lupin hesitated, and then stuck out his hand. “Remus Lupin.”

“Hermione Granger,” said Hermione, and they shook. It was _very odd_ , doing that. She refused to think about how odd it was. _You were my favorite professor, and now you’re looking at me like I’m half-manticore._ “Anyway, it’s not your fault. I had—an accident—this summer. I used to be better about keeping my hair under control.”

“Could be worse,” said Lupin after a moment. “Could be throwing fire.”

She blinked at him. _Did Remus Lupin just make a joke?_ Well, he _was_ nineteen years younger than when she’d known him, and seemingly less anxious or careworn, but— _still._ Hermione rolled her eyes, and ignored the little grin that flickered around his mouth. “I haven’t lit anything on fire unintentionally since I was _nine_.”

Lupin’s eyes widened, but comically this time. “So you’ve done it on purpose?”

“None of your business,” said Hermione, prim as she could make herself, but apparently it wasn’t prim enough. He grinned a little wider.

“Of course,” he said, very dryly. “I’m sorry to inquire as to whether you’re an arsonist.”

“Thank you for your gallantry,” said Hermione, and he snorted. “Do you, um—do you go to Hogwarts? Only—”

She gestured at his own book, _Dark Spells for Dark Minds_.

“—I couldn’t find that earlier, and I need a copy too.”

“You’re a Hogwarts student?” said Lupin. “Sorry, just—I’ve never seen you before.”

“I went to Beauxbatons,” said Hermione. “Until—well, now. Are there any more copies?”

“I don’t think so. You could ask, though; I think I saw the shop girl at the front—”

“Oi, Remus!” called a voice from two rows over, and Lupin’s head snapped up. If he could have, he’d have cocked his ears; she was absolutely certain of it. She’d never seen him do something so blatantly _wolfy_ before, and it made her blink. _Twenty years, Hermione_ , she told herself. _Twenty years less practice hiding._ Twenty years fewer full moons. In her back pocket, the Orbis Sanguis warmed. “Where the hell’d you go?”

“Sorry,” said Lupin, and took a step back. “My friends—”

 _Friends._ She froze. _Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs._ Had they made the Map yet? _Would_ they make the Map in this world? Had Sirius, James, and Pettigrew become Animagi? _Are they even the Marauders in this world? Are they even friends?_ The voice—she didn’t know it, and that—

_Don’t think about that, Hermione._

Hermione waved him off, and ignored the slight pang in her chest. This Lupin might not be Professor Lupin, might not be the Lupin she’d known, but he was, at least, familiar in a way the rest of this world wasn’t. She swallowed, and said, “It’s fine. Sorry to spark at you.”

“See you at Hogwarts?” he said, a bit hopefully, and Hermione nodded.

“See you.”

Lupin bolted, then, around the corner. Hermione waited until she was certain he wouldn’t see, and then put _Tales from the Wizarding World War_ back on the shelf and made her way towards the front of the shop to wait for the McKinnons.

The next two weeks were a blur. Hermione couldn’t fully process it, not truly. She spent most of her time reading her new-old textbooks, head spinning. _Dark Spells for Dark Minds_ in particular disturbed her—there were Dark spells in it she’d _never_ heard of, and the idea learning them actively in a classroom setting was somehow more disturbing than Barty Crouch Jr. using the Imperius Curse on students to teach them how to break it. She took notes anyway—even if the book made her feel like scum, she read it cover to cover—and hid it away from Mo and Mitzy in the hand-me-down trunk Marlene had given her. The interior was covered in moving stickers for Quidditch teams Hermione had never heard of, and no charm she knew could remove them. One of them, labeled _Truro Triskelions_ , actually called her a very rude word when she tried to rip it off.

The trip to Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters was rather sedate, all told. Marlene had to be at work before eight, so she said her goodbyes to them the night before, hugging Mo and Mitzy fiercely before turning to Hermione and hugging her, too. “Write to me,” she said, and Hermione, slowly, hugged her back. “Let me know you’re doing okay.”

Hermione hid her face in Marlene’s shoulder, and took a deep, shaky breath. _You shouldn’t,_ her logic told her. It was unwise to get attached to anybody in this world, knowing what she knew about her own. Marlene and the other McKinnons had been murdered, there; murdered _horribly_ , maybe even by Voldemort himself, for everything they’d done. She’d already lost her best friends, her parents, her Order, her _world_ —if Marlene was going to die, then _—_

She couldn’t think that way. _Wouldn’t_. She hugged Marlene back, and said, “I will.”

Marlene made a happy little sound, and hugged her tighter before letting go.

Even though she’d made her decision weeks ago, her palms were sweating as they made their way to King’s Cross. They’d taken Floo powder—“it’s easier,” Magda said, though Hermione begged to differ, hauling her trunk into the fireplace along with her—and the rough-and-tumble ride through chimneys nearly made her gag on soot and smoke. She met Magda on the other side, who brushed soot off her cheek before moving to help Mitzy, complete with a shrieking half-kneazle in a wicker basket, out of the fireplace.

Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters was almost completely empty. There were a handful of families scattered up and down the platform, but not nearly so many as she remembered. Not nearly so many as there _should_ be. At the far end of the platform, a gaggle of presumably Muggleborn families were sticking together with the new first years, looking agog at the train and the station and the wizarding families that were fixing their children’s clothes. Nobody seemed to want to be there at all. Mo and Mitzy didn’t appear to notice; they babbled to each other, happily, as Magda brushed soot off their clothes and fussed over them both.

 _People are leaving_ , she realized. _Or dying._

“No one’s here,” she said aloud, and then flushed. She shouldn’t have said that, not with Mitzy and Mo right there. Magda gave her a _look_ , and then fixed Mitzy’s collar again.

“I’m sure it’s just because we’re late,” she said. “Right, train leaves in five minutes—I’ll see both of you beasts at Christmas. Yes?”

“Ugh, _Mum_ ,” said Mo, and scooted out of Magda’s reach after Magda pressed another kiss to her curly red hair. “Fine.”

“Yes,” said Mitzy, and hoisted Natasha’s wicker basket higher in her arms. Hermione took the cat from her, and ignored the evil-sounding hiss from within. _Is this how other people felt about Crookshanks?_ She’d never been _scared_ of a cat before, not really, but she had the feeling that Natasha would only ever like Mitzy, and be content to watch everyone else on the planet die a horrible death. “Of course, Mum.”

“Excellent.” Magda arched her eyebrow at Hermione. “And you, you’ll come back for Christmas?”

Hermione blinked. “…I didn’t think you’d want me.”

“Nonsense,” said Magda. “Albus asked us to take care of you. Of course, he only meant for the summer, but we’d be happy to have you back. It’s not a problem at all.”

“Magda, I don’t want to impose—”

“Oh, hush,” said Magda, and kissed Hermione’s forehead soundly. “You’ll come back for Christmas, unless, of course, you decide to put those dress robes to good use. Now—you have everything?”

“Yeah.”

“Mo, Mitzy? You two have everything?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“Excellent,” said Magda, and kissed Mo’s forehead, too. She pulled Mitzy into a tight hug, and kissed her hair. “Be good, the pair of you. Listen to your professors. Listen to Hermione. And be _safe_.”

“Hogwarts _is_ safe, Mum,” said Mitzy, sounding a little smothered.

“Let me worry, you minx,” said Magda. “Now—on the train, all three of you. And Hermione?”

Hermione, halfway up into the compartment, stopped.

“Keep an eye on them,” said Magda. Only her eyes showed any kind of concern. The honey of them seemed darker, like she’d been cast into shadow. “Please.”

Mo rolled her eyes.

“Of course,” said Hermione, and passed Natasha’s wicker cage into the compartment before hoisting herself inside.

Without Malfoy coming by to annoy her, or prefect duties to occupy her, or her friends to chat with, she was a bit at a loss for how to pass the time. Hermione split her time on the train between reading _Under the Moonlight: A Vampire’s Memoir_ (she’d found it in the McKinnons’ library) and chatting absently with Mitzy, who’d read the autobiography an astounding three years before and still had quite a few thoughts about whether the author was a reliable narrator. (Hermione’s eyebrows hitched up at some of the racier chapters—there had been quite a few rather detailed scenes of vampiric matings that she wouldn’t have let a nine-year-old anywhere near—but Mitzy seemed completely unmoved by the rather sexual nature of the book, and rather more intrigued by how it was technically banned by the Ministry of Magic. “Because it goes against the propaganda they want spread about vampires, of course—they don’t want anyone to remember that vampires have their own covens and societies outside of the control of wizarding governments, they don’t like it.”)

(Now that she thought about it, Mitzy was rather more like Luna Lovegood than she’d anticipated. Though, judging from what little she remembered about political opinions on vampires in her own world, she couldn’t say that Mitzy was _wrong_.)

It seemed like a century had passed by the time the Head Boy, a gangly-looking Gryffindor with curly brown hair and a nice smile, poked his head in to let them know it was time to change. Hermione drew the curtains and turned her back on Mo and Mitzy, not wanting them to see the large scar that still stretched from her collarbone to her belly. It was vivid purple, and would most likely always be that way—hex marks tended to keep the color of whatever spell they came from, and the Death Eater’s curse had been a deep plum that would be etched forever into her skin. Somehow, putting on the uniform soothed her nerves. It was much, much different than the uniform she remembered. Instead of a single large cloak they could put on over their regular clothes, there was a long-sleeved white button-down; a slate-grey waistcoat trimmed with white silk (for her), yellow silk (for Mo), or blue silk (for Mitzy); and a matching grey knee-length skirt with a panel inlay in the same colors. Hermione picked at the white, palms sweating a little.

“Don’t worry,” said Mitzy, looking sympathetic. “It’ll change once you get Sorted.”

“Oh,” said Hermione. She fingered the white inlay as Mitzy freed Natasha from her wicker prison. “Is it a timed Color-Change Charm? But I’ve never heard of one that has timing like that, it must be coded to a particular word, but—how would they—”

“Her _mi_ one,” said Mo, and bumped her elbow into Hermione’s ribs. It was very odd to see her in a skirt. Mo had spent all summer living in cargo shorts and trainers. “You can worry about magic later. Help me take the trunks down.”

The Hogsmeade station was just the same. Heavy stone and rickety wood, as if the station had been built a hundred years ago. The platform was crowded with Hogwarts students, first years tucked neatly into uniforms so sharp the creases almost seemed to cut. In contrast, the seventh years barely had their ties tied, aside from the brown-haired Head Boy whose curly hair was neatly parted to the right. There was a gaggle of first years halfway down the platform that were shoving each other about. Had she still been a prefect, she would have marched into the middle and stopped it; as it was, she was fairly certain the gamekeeper would be along shortly and boss them into submission. _Would it be Hagrid?_ Had he been expelled in this world for Tom Riddle’s crime? Was—

“Excuse me,” said a voice, and a boy with light, brownish-blonde hair stepped into the circle of first years. “Settle down, please—and put your wands away, if a professor sees you waving those about they’ll have your hides. Now—”

He looked up and caught her eye, and Hermione blinked; it was Lupin. She gave a little wave, and Lupin waved back, smiling just a little, before turning back to his duties; there was a badge with a red-and-gold _P_ pinned to his cloak. _Prefect Remus Lupin,_ she thought. It fit. It was only after she turned away that she realized Mo was staring at her, open mouthed.

“How do you know a _Marauder_ ,” said Mo, now peering at Hermione as if she were a whole new person. “ _Hermione._ You said you didn’t know anyone here!”

Behind them, Hagrid’s booming voice began to echo. “Firs’ years, this way—firs’ years, follow me—” Hermione’s shoulders hitched up, and she walked further away. She was not sure she could see Hagrid’s massive, kindly face without bursting into tears.

“I don’t know him at all.” said Hermione. “I met him in the bookshop, that’s all. He was nice. Can we go to the carriages now?”

“ _Absolutely not_ —”

“I don’t know what a Marauder _is_ ,” Hermione lied, as Mitzy picked up Natasha and held her in her arms. “So I don’t know what exactly I’ve done. And I’m hungry and tired, so if you could explain—”

“The Marauders are a gang of Gryffindor boys who like to make trouble,” said Mitzy, and reached out with one hand to catch Hermione’s sleeve and tug her towards a carriage. “That’s all.”

“They’re _brilliant_ ,” said Mo, with a distinctly Weasley Twins-esque shine in her eyes. “They prank _everyone_ , but they never get caught, it’s amazing—”

Hermione tuned them out as Mitzy and Mo clambered up into the carriage. She couldn’t quite hear them properly anymore; she couldn’t quite hear anything anymore.

The thestral pulling the carriage had noticed her looking. It was very bony—skeletal, even—its dark skin pulled tight over its bones as if it never ate at all. She could remember the feel of that skin under her palms as it flew, almost like leather but warmer, with blood coursing through it, a living thing that she hadn’t been able to see bearing her weight easily through the sky. Hermione swallowed—her throat had suddenly turned dry as bone—before making her way slowly around the carriage and stopping beside the thestral’s head. It turned its bony face to her, and bobbed its head a little, as if to say, _oh, hello_.

 _Thestrals can only be seen by people who have seen death,_ she thought. Sirius’s fall through the Veil—that counted.

“Hello,” said Hermione softly. Her fingers shook a little as she reached out, and touched the thing’s cheek. It leaned into it, and blew out air into the warm damp evening. “Hello.”

“Hermione?” said Mo, and Hermione looked up. Mo was leaning out of the carriage, looking very confused. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” said Hermione, and withdrew her hand. The thestral looked at her, blinking slowly with large, dead white eyes. She thought of Harry, Harry last September as they’d boarded the carriages, and she had to scrub her hand over her cheeks to dash away tears. “Thank you,” she said to the thestral, and then she turned to climb up into the carriage herself. She wasn’t in the mood to talk anymore. Thankfully, Mo and Mitzy seemed to notice, and turned to chat with each other instead.

The ride up to the school was slower than she remembered. They had to pass through more wards—Hermione could feel the magic tingling on her skin as they went, and how it brushed over her hair. In Mitzy’s arms, Natasha made an unhappy mowling noise, and struggled to be let loose. The castle itself looked just the same, and oh, her heart _ached_ to see it lit up like a Christmas tree in the middle of the dark, rolling hills. Light spilled out the front doors and onto the grass as their carriage pulled to a stop. Mitzy needed help getting down—Natasha was going wild—and Hermione was brushing cat fur off her robes when a voice, in clipped brogue, said, “Miss Granger, I presume?”

Hermione almost yipped.

Professor McGonagall’s hair was different. Instead of a high, stern bun at the top of her head, she had a short, equally stern bob that was cut along the line of her sharp jaw, not one single hair out of place. Her robes were a bit sharper, too. Instead of long, flowing emerald velvet, they hung closer to her body—not out of fashion, Hermione thought, but practicality in a fight. Her sleeves were tighter, and had less material, so she didn’t get caught up in them if she had to throw a spell without warning. She was also, Hermione realized, young—a little older than Professor Lupin had been her third year, but still not the greying witch that Hermione had known. Still, she was as prim and as stern as the Professor McGonagall in her world, and seemed ready to go to war at a moment’s notice. She swept a look down Hermione’s uniform, nodding a little when she saw the white inlay to Hermione’s skirt. “Come with me, please,” she said, and Mo nudged her elbow into Hermione’s ribs.

“Go on.”

“Thank you, Miss McKinnon,” said Professor McGonagall, “for granting permission,” and Mo squeaked and bolted. Mitzy followed at a more leisurely pace, and Natasha traipsed along behind with her tail in the air like a flag of honor.

“Professor Dumbledore informed me of your history, Miss Granger,” said Professor McGonagall, as they marched up the steps into the Entrance Hall. Hermione barely had a chance to look around before Professor McGonagall turned, and started down the narrow hallway that led to her office. “I am—deeply sorry for what you have experienced. No one, especially a girl your age, should have to deal with such brutality.”

Hermione swallowed. “It’s war,” she said, after a moment, and Professor McGonagall’s shoulders went, if possible, even straighter.

“Not at Hogwarts,” she said shortly, and turned. “In here, please.”

Professor McGonagall’s office was much the same as Hermione remembered, with a few major changes. On the mantel above the crackling fireplace stood three photographs; one, unmoving, of a Muggle with a wide smile; another, moving frequently, of Professor McGonagall, with no grey in her hair, holding a small child. The third was of the child older, maybe eleven or twelve, looking as stern as Professor McGonagall and with his Hogwarts tie in blue and bronze. _Ravenclaw._ Hermione, more shaken than she wanted to admit, swallowed hard.

“Sit,” said Professor McGonagall, and Hermione sat in the hard chair across from the desk. It was only then that she realized the Sorting Hat was sitting on the desk, its sewn mouth determinedly sealed. She let out a short breath, and curled her hands up in her lap. “Professor Dumbledore will be along shortly to greet you before he attends to the Great Hall and the Welcome Feast, but we—” her disgruntled look said _I_ “—thought it would be better to have you Sorted in private. There is no reason to draw more attention to you than will already be drawn, coming in to the school so late in your education. And, I suspect, you don’t want to be the center of attention any more than I would think the first years do.”

Hermione swallowed, and looked at the Hat. “Um—thank you, I suppose.”

“There’s little to it,” said Professor McGonagall. “The Hat is a method—one which has been disputed, but is deeply woven into Hogwarts traditions—which will determine in which House you would be best suited to live.” She stood. “If I may, Miss Granger?”

She bit her lip. Still, Hermione nodded. _You’ve done this before._ “All right.”

Professor McGonagall settled the Hat on Hermione’s head, and stood there, waiting.

 _Ah,_ said the Hat, and Hermione closed her eyes. It’d taken a little while, she remembered, for the Hat to Sort her the first time. Then she blanched, because if the Hat could read her mind, then—

 _What a very curious creature you are, Miss Granger._ The little voice in her ear seemed almost sly. _Everything is simply a whole new world for you._

 _Please don’t tell anyone_ , she thought. _Please, please don’t, please._

_I have no intention of informing anyone of what I find in your head, Miss Granger. It goes against my purpose. Although I wonder, sometimes, if speaking up would not do the world more good than staying silent._

Hermione, not knowing what to think about that, simply thought, _I was in Gryffindor last time._

 _So you were. And an exemplary Lioness, were you not? Although with your mind, your wit, your cold and brutal cleverness—you perhaps would be just as well suited to Ravenclaw. But we have had this conversation before, haven’t we? Have you considered what it will make you feel, to be back amongst the Lions without your friends? Have you thought that, perhaps, it would be better in the long run for you to be elsewhere? You are, after all, suffering_. The Hat laughed in her ear. _Suffering badly, little Miss Granger. A cruel and inhuman world you have found yourself in, and all alone, too._

 _Stop it,_ thought Hermione firmly. _You’re being nasty._

 _Nasty, you call me, nasty—well, perhaps you’re right._ The Hat went silent for a long moment. _I find looking into the minds of those who would rather reap blood than learning to be unsettling in the best of times, and these, most certainly, are not._

Hermione, thinking of Crabbe and Goyle, thought, _I’m sorry._

 _I am the Sorting Hat,_ said the Hat. _It is my purpose. And as for you, Miss Granger: where is it I should put you? Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure, perhaps, but for you—your dedication to what’s right, your courage in the coming dark, your steadfast bravery in a world not your own—for sure, it means you’re meant for—_

“Gryffindor,” said the Hat, very clearly and a little smugly, as if it had made the decision all on its own. Hermione opened her eyes, and found Professor McGonagall looking at her. There was also, she realized with a cold burst in her chest, Professor Dumbledore; he stood beside the desk with his hands folded neatly behind his back, his sparkling pointed hat the same color as midnight. Hermione hesitated, and then took the spare wand out of her pocket, and settled it on Professor McGonagall’s desk.

“Thank you for the loan, Professor.”

“No trouble,” said Professor Dumbledore, and peered at her. “How do you feel, Miss Granger?”

Hermione shrugged, and looked at the oak wand. Her own went warm and comforting in her pocket as Professor McGonagall took the Hat off of Hermione’s head, and set it back on the desk.

“I am glad to see you looking so well,” said Professor Dumbledore. “Magdalene kept me informed of your recovery, of course, but it is a rather different thing to see it.”

“Thank you, Professor,” said Hermione. “I—feel better than I did.”

He nodded. “If you wish,” he said, “you might retire to Gryffindor Tower. The Feast is a lovely tradition, but it can be—boisterous.”

“And make her a spectacle when the other girls come into the dormitory and find a stranger in their midst? No.” Professor McGonagall shook herself as if dashing water from her whiskers. “No. She’s not made of glass, Albus. She’s been Sorted, according to the Hat; she’ll sit at the Gryffindor table with the rest of them, and if they’ve questions for you, Miss Granger, you’ll answer as best you can. And you _tell me_ if any of them get shifty.”

The look on Professor McGonagall’s face promised detention for them if they did, and in that moment Hermione missed _her_ Professor McGonagall in that moment so badly it ached. _Her_ Professor McGonagall knew that Hermione could take care of herself. At the same time, though, fierce gratitude welled up in her chest like fire—she didn’t _want_ to be made a fuss of, not like this. She nodded.

“Yes, Professor.”

“In that case,” said Professor Dumbeldore, and twinkled a little. “I shall leave you in Professor McGonagall’s more than capable hands. Minerva?”

“Quite,” said Professor McGonagall shortly. Professor Dumbledore gave her a look that she supposed was encouraging, but it just made Hermione feel queasy. The heavy door swung shut.

“Now then,” said Professor McGonagall. “Professor Dumbledore tells me you’ve come to us from the continent.”

“Yes,” said Hermione, after a moment. She took a deep breath. _This is your backstory, Hermione. You know all of it._ “From Académie de Magie Beauxbâtons.”

“Excellent,” said Professor McGonagall, taking a file out of her desk drawer. Hermione, thinking of Professor McGonagall’s face at the arrival of Madame Maxime, rather thought she was hiding her opinion about it, but left it alone. “Well, your papers all seem to be in order. Professor Dumbledore mentioned you’d been studying for your _Examen de Magie Supérieure_?”

Her French came across a bit odd in her Scottish accent, but it was more than understandable. Hermione nodded.

“From my understanding, Beauxbatons students don’t take their MS exams until their sixth year,” said Professor McGonagall. “However, in Britain, as you may have heard from your parents—”

“My parents were Muggles,” said Hermione. “They—they didn’t take any of these tests.”

Professor McGonagall’s eyes softened, just a little. She cleared her throat, and it made Hermione wonder—what story had Professor Dumbledore told Professor McGonagall? Just that her parents were dead? Or had he told Professor McGonagall the whole truth? She hoped not.

“Right,” said Professor McGonagall, and shook herself. “Well then. In Britain, there are two separate testing levels. The first are Ordinary Wizarding Levels, or OWLs, taken during the fifth year of study. The second, Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests, or NEWTs, occur at the end of a student’s seventh and final year.”

Hermione, who had read about OWLs and NEWTs before she’d even been initiated into first year classes, nodded as if this was news.

“Fifth year students at Hogwarts take their OWL practical and written examinations at the end of third term, and receive their results by the end of their summer holidays.” Professor McGonagall made another note on her parchment, and nodded, almost to herself. “I’ve reviewed the curriculum at l’Académie and it appears that while France is beyond us in some ways—” her nose wrinkled, as if saying this made her face physically ache “—their practical core courses are severely behind our level of current instruction.”

Hermione, thinking of Fleur’s defense spells in the Triwizard Tournament, could not help but agree. She’d been bemused at the time as to how a seventh year student who could cast a perfect Bubble-Head Charm, had truly spectacular fire spells, and had the powers of a _literal veela_ , wings, bird-beak, and all, had been unable to defend herself from a pack of Grindylows. Back then, she’d thought that maybe Fleur had used her veela charm to get good grades in her classes. Now, apparently, she could blame the curriculum of Beauxbatons itself.

“As such,” said Professor McGonagall, and Hermione snapped back to herself. “It is my and Professor Dumbledore’s recommendation that you be placed in some fifth, some sixth year classes, after a series of tests to determine your span of knowledge and competency in the courses we have available here at Hogwarts. If that’s acceptable to you, Miss Granger.”

“Yes, Professor,” said Hermione, who knew Professor McGonagall well enough to know when she was ordering someone about, and not offering a choice. Something in her heart leaped, though. Professor McGonagall had been more than willing to fight on her behalf to get her into every third year class, but every request to jump ahead a year had been flatly denied— _against school policy_ , Professor McGonagall had said, though she’d looked sad about it. _If we let one student do it, every Ravenclaw in the building would be pounding down my door_. And it had made sense, it _had_ , and she’d been challenged enough with all her coursework to not feel bored, but _to skip a year_ —her palms sweat with the thought of it.

“Excellent,” said Professor McGonagall, and stood up sharpish from her desk chair. Hermione copied her, and smoothed out her robes. Her chest felt tender and sore from the train ride, but that was to be expected. She blinked in surprise, though, when she checked her skirt—the inlay to it had gone from white to red. _Clever._ “You know the way back to the Great Hall, I presume? Then off you march. I’ve first years to collect. You’ll miss the first two days of classes while we conduct our evaluations of your work via your orientation, Miss Granger. You should have your full schedule by the end of the week.”

“Yes, Professor,” said Hermione.

“Good luck, then,” said Professor McGonagall, and with that she was dismissed.

Hermione did not go immediately to the Great Hall. She probably should—it was getting close to the dinner hour, and all the students would be there waiting for the Sorting to begin; she’d have to go back upstairs in an hour or two, after picking through her food, most likely having answers pried out of her like she was some sort of oyster. _My parents are dead_ was always a bit of a conversation stopper—she’d seen enough people stop talking to Harry after he dropped that little bombshell—so maybe they’d leave her alone after a while. Somehow, she doubted it. Hermione fluffed her hair for a moment or two, perched on the stairs down into the Great Hall, and then dropped down onto the last step, propped her chin in her hands, and wished for a book.

“Buck up, my lass,” she told herself. “It’s only school. You’re good at school.”

 _So good at school that nobody can stand you_ , said a nasty little voice in the back of her mind. _Nobody could stand you in your own world. Why would anyone like you here?_

“Speak for yourself,” said an amused female voice from behind her, and Hermione whipped her head around. The girl was a Gryffindor, that much was clear from the trim on her skirt. Long brown hair with bright eyes that seemed to dance. Her waistcoat was unbuttoned, though, and underneath it, instead of the button-down shirt, she wore an artfully messy raglan that read _QUEEN_ across it in big letters. It took a moment for Hermione to realize it was probably referring to the band, and not some kind of joke about mismatched royalty.

“Mary MacDonald,” said the girl, in a broad Belfast accent. Hermione took the hand, and found herself yanked to her feet.

“Hermione Granger.”

“Oo, _Gran-jerr_. French?”

Hermione steeled herself. _Come on, Hermione. Get it together._ “On my father’s side.”

“Brilliant,” said Mary. “You can help me practice, I haven’t studied French since primary school. You’re the new fifth year?”

“Seems so,” said Hermione. She was trying to remember whether she’d ever read about anyone named _Mary MacDonald_ in any of the books on the First Wizarding War. So far, nothing was coming to mind. She relaxed, infinitesimally. “Nice to meet you.”

“You don’t want to be sitting here in the next ten minutes,” said Mary sagely, and tipped her head towards the Great Hall. Hermione, who wasn’t sure if Mary MacDonald was a girl or a hurricane, let herself be drawn along. “All the first years will be trooping in soaked from the lake, and you’ll get mud on your shoes. You hungry?”

Hermione shrugged.

“Brilliant. _Lils_!” bellowed Mary, and a girl with red hair coming through the doors of the Entrance Hall jumped as if she’d been prodded with a hot poker. “Come sit with us!”

“Give me a moment,” said the girl called Lils, and went back to talking to the third year Hufflepuff she was standing beside.

“Prefect duties,” said Mary, and rolled her eyes. “Lils is _determined_ to be the best prefect she can be, silly swot.” Her voice was very fond, though. Hermione’s bones ached, and she’d gone still; Mary didn’t seem to notice. “Come on. We’ll want to get a bench before all the boys come in; they tend to steal the bench next to all the black pudding and it drives me mad. D’you like black pudding?”

She didn’t, really, and she wasn’t sure about this Mary girl, either, but it was fairly clear that Mary had adopted her by force, and her babble had tidbits of information in it that could be useful. Hermione let it wash over her in a wave. Names bubbled up from the mist of it. Not just _Lils_ , but _Adrian_ , _Malachi_ , _Mary-Anne_ , _Emmeline, Arabella, Douglas, Otto, Rupert, Barnaby—_ probably all Gryffindors, though none of them aside from Emmeline (maybe Emmeline Vance?) rang a bell or ten for Hermione. Hermione listened, and watched as the teachers trooped in to settle at the High Table. Professor Dumbledore was already seated; he gave her the tiniest nod when he caught her looking, and then turned to speak to Professor Vector, who looked much, much younger and much less stern than Hermione remembered. The Defense Against the Dark Arts chair was empty— _unsurprising; apparently it’s the same in all timelines_ —as was the Potions chair, but Herbology was filled by an old, spindly man with hair that seemed to be half-grass, a younger and less damaged looking Professor Kettleburn was in the Care of Magical Creatures chair (he had his whole left arm), and Professor Flitwick, looking like—well, like a decade or three had been shaved off his life—was talking animatedly with a dark-skinned woman who was wearing appeared to be a set of overalls on beneath her cloak.

“That’s Professor Meadowes,” said Mary. “She teaches Muggle Studies, she’s brilliant. Muggleborn.”

“I can tell,” said Hermione, and looked at the table. _Dorcas Meadowes_. She’d been murdered by Voldemort himself, isn’t that what Professor Moody had told Harry? _That’s Dorcas Meadowes, Voldemort killed her personally,_ that’s what he’d said. She’d barely heard him over the babble during the party for her and Ron making Prefect—her heart ached—but—yes, that sounded right. And she’d read newspaper clippings in the library about it later. _Dorcas Meadowes, dead 12th July, 1981, found murdered in her home in the Cotswolds—_

“Does Beauxbatons have a Muggle Studies class?” asked Mary, and leaned back on the bench to wave at the redheaded girl, Lils, making her way down the aisle. “Is that offered?”

“Yes. I’m Muggleborn, so they didn’t want me to take it, but I thought it was interesting to learn it from the wizarding side.”

Mary’s eyes lit up. “Me too! Me mum and dad thought it was right mad, me being a witch, but then I blew up me brother’s eighth birthday cake cause he pinched me and they couldn’t rightly tell me I wasn’t, after.”

Hermione smiled almost in spite of herself. She’d vanished every bannister on the stairs to the second floor when she’d been three—she’d been furious her mother had been trying to tie her shoes for her. She said, “I think I scared mine, honestly.”

“Brilliant—Lils, this is Hermione _Gran-jerr_ —” Mary winked at Hermione, as if to say, _told you so_ “—she’s a new transfer from Beauxbatons. In France, Unplottable, second best wizarding school in Europe—”

“Oh, really,” said Lils, looking amused. Her eyes creased at the edges in a hidden smile. “Second best now? I thought it was bottom of your list.”

“Dunno what you’re talking about,” said Mary airily. “Hermione, this is Lily Evans, our _miraculous_ prefect. She’s Muggleborn, too.” 

Hermione, who’d been taking a sip of the water, promptly choked on it.

_Lils._

_Lily._

_Lily Potter._

She looked like Harry. Not in the face, she was too white for that, and definitely not in the hair, but something in the eyes—beyond the shape, the color—was the same softness Harry had. The same shy kindness. Their lips pursed the same way. Their eyebrows quirked the same way. Harry’s mother pounded her back hard enough to make her gag, and Hermione snapped out of it. _Not a timeline,_ she told herself fiercely, _not a timeline, I can’t break anything if it’s not a timeline_ , and she said, “Sorry, wrong pipe—”

“You sound like you’re dying, love,” said Mary, and whacked her on the back under Lily’s hand for good measure. It was in exactly the wrong place. Hermione whined—her sensitive ribs couldn’t take that harsh a punishment—and Lily immediately drew Mary’s hand away.

“You all right, Hermione?”

“Just—” Hermione groped for the goblet again, hoping more water would help. “Just—sensitive—old injury—”

“Fucking Christ, I’m so sorry—” Lily flushed. “Damn—damn. I’m trying to stop cursing. I’m so sorry, Hermione, I didn’t know—”

Hermione waved a hand, hoping they didn’t notice it was shaking. “I’m fine.”

Mary was goggling at her. “What happened to your ribs?”

Hermione was spared from finding an answer by a boy saying, “All right there, Evans?” from the other side of the table. She could see the change in Lily in an instant—how her mouth went tight the way Harry’s did when he was angry and failing to hide it—but Lily ignored the voice. When Hermione peeked through her bushy hair, there was a boy sitting about three meters down the bench that made her heart stop. _Harry_ , but Not Harry; his skin tone was a little darker, more like Parvati’s and Padma’s than Harry’s. His hair was longer, his nose too long. His eyes were different, too, hazel instead of green, and he looked—well, the best way to put it was that he looked _well-fed_. There was an aura of cherishment and care around him that Harry simply didn’t have. He didn’t fidget the way Harry did, or sit up straight the way Harry sat, like he thought he was going to be whacked for not having perfect posture. He lounged, his hair artfully messy, looking healthy and well-loved and well-off, and his eyes were fixed on Lily.

“How about you go fuck yourself, Jimbo,” called Mary, and made a rude gesture with both hands. Hermione blinked. Jimbo— _James Potter,_ Harry’s father—scowled.

“Wasn’t talking to you, MacDonald.”

“Go stick a broomstick up your arse,” said Mary.

“I’m all right,” said Hermione, and Lily looked down at her again. The tension was still twisting up her mouth, but she squeezed Hermione’s shoulder gently anyway. “Sorry to worry you.”

“It’s all right.”

“Who’s your friend, Evans?” called James, and when another boy—beautiful black hair, sharp features, grey eyes, _Sirius_ , her heart stopped, this was worse than she’d imagined when she’d seen Lupin in the shop, _what do I do_ , and the Orbis Sanguis went hot in her pocket— _is it always going to do that around anyone from the Black family?_ —dropped down next to him, they smirked. Sirius leaned forward on one elbow, and said something to James that Hermione couldn’t make out. “She new?”

“Just ignore him,” said Lily, looking embarrassed. Her nose had gone pink. “He’s—he’s a twat, really. He tries to annoy me. I think it’s because I ignore him.”

Hermione, reminded rather severely of Cormac McLaggen, a sixth year who’d flirted with her at the Yule Ball, met Lily’s eyes. “I’ve met boys like that.”

Lily gave her a shy smile, and slid in on Hermione’s other side. She was bracketed by two witches her own age, and she couldn’t remember the last time that had happened, before the DA. Hermione took another large gulp of water, and avoided looking at Harry’s apparent prat of a father.

 _That certainly doesn’t match up to everything I’ve heard about him_. All she’d read and everything she’d heard from Sirius and Professor Lupin had made it seem like James and Lily had been a perfect match; meant to be. _Prongs and his doe_. Then again, she thought, watching James Potter out of the corner of her vision, everyone who mentioned that was a man. Though she didn’t think anyone who could have given birth to Harry Potter, of all people, would have gone into a marriage with someone she even _vaguely_ disliked. So what had happened to—

_Not your business, Hermione Jean._

There was a thunk partway down the table, and she lifted her head again to see Lupin wincing and rubbing his shins. He’d walked into the bench from the look of it. Beside him, a small, chubby, round-faced boy with an upturned nose fussed at him, and Hermione’s insides froze. _Peter Pettigrew._ Peter, who’d lived as a rat in Ron’s room for years; Peter, who’d had James and Lily killed. Peter who had caused _everything_. She fisted her hand around the wand in her pocket, and took a deep breath through her nose as Lupin looked up, catching her eye and waving at her with a tiny smile on his lips. She smiled back at him, thinly, and made herself let go of her wand.

“How d’you know Remus?” Lily asked, curiously. “I thought you’d lived in France?”

“We met in Diagon Alley,” said Hermione, and looked back at her plate. “He seems nice.”

“Get any of that lot on their own but Potter, and they’re decent blokes,” said Mary. “Even Black, for all he’s a wretched flirt. Good Beater, too. He was an arse last year, but he was man enough to apologize, at least. I don’t think Potter’s grown up enough for that yet, even if he’s one of the most brilliant flyers I’ve ever seen.”

“Mary’s the Gryffindor Seeker,” said Lily. 

“Lupin’s the nicest,” said Mary. “Proper sweet, if he’s not hanging about with the others, but it’s hard to get him to say a word, he’s _so_ shy—”

“Remus isn’t shy,” said Lily, sounding amused. “He’s just misanthropic.”

“I think he heard you,” said Mary, and broke out laughing when down the table Lupin flushed red and rolled his eyes at them. “Ears like a bat, that one. Anyway—Peter’s a darling. If I fancied wizards, I’d probably fancy him. But—alas.” She put a hand to her heart. “The witches, their call is too strong.”

Lily snorted. “You’re being overdramatic.”

“It’s not my fault there are so many pretty girls here,” said Mary. “Don’t worry, Granger, you’re safe, I don’t flirt where I sleep—”

Hermione, her face flaming, said, “Oh.” She’d been under the impression that witches and wizards simply didn’t talk about it, if they weren’t straight. Either this world was much less conservative—somehow she doubted that—or Mary was…incredibly brave. She had a feeling it was the latter, if Mary was truly good friends with Lily Potter. Evans. Lily Evans. “Right then.”

“—and if I did, Lils is more my type than you, sorry to say—oh, look—first years—”

And indeed, the doors to the Great Hall had opened, and the first years, soaking wet from lake water and tinier than Hermione could ever remember seeing them, were trundling into the hall. There was only about twenty-five of them—her throat tightened—and most of them looked quite frightened. Lily, next to her, frowned.

“There are fewer every year,” she said, softly. “People keep dying.”

“Bet you at least half this lot will be Muggleborn like us,” said Mary. She’d lost all joviality, and her eyebrows were merging into one long, anxious line. “Bet they don’t know anything about what’s going on, either, it’s not like anybody _tells_ them—”

“I don’t take rigged bets,” said Lily. “Oh, look at the wee one, she’s so small—”

The _wee one_ , as Lily described, was a tiny Asian girl whose robes were much too large for her; she tripped on the end of her cloak three times on her way up to the front of the Hall.

The Sorting passed in a blur of light and sound. Hermione, to her horror, could no longer fully process things. She was too tired; she’d seen too much; there were too many things that were familiar and yet not for her to be able to focus on any one thing. The Sorting Hat sang, but she could only catch phrases. _Divided we fall_ , like the song it had sung her own fifth year. And: _if anything we should beware there be / ‘twould be hatred, mistrust, and disharmony_ , which she thought was _quite_ hard enough to say in the musical time the Hat had chosen; she didn’t need it ricocheting around in her head. The Sorting ended, with three new Gryffindors being added to the table, including the _wee one_ — _Lucinda Nakama_ , along with six Hufflepuffs, seven Ravenclaws, and a whopping _ten_ new Slytherins. After the fourth Slytherin in a row, she couldn’t even watch the Sorting at all—she looked up at the High Table, where Professor Dumbledore had leaned over to speak with the round, well-dressed professor at his left hand. It was only once the last first year had sat down, and Professor McGonagall had given Filch the Hat to stow safely away, that Professor Dumbledore stood, and stroked his beard.

Slowly, the noise in the Hall died. Well, mostly. When she looked at the Slytherin table, more than a few were still chatting amongst themselves.

“We begin,” said Professor Dumbledore, “yet another year at Hogwarts. Forgive me for keeping you from your meal, but there are a few words I would like to say before term truly begins.”

Down the table, someone shifted. When she looked, Sirius Black and James Potter were staring at Professor Dumbledore almost without blinking.

“There is much that could be said,” said Professor Dumbledore, “about what has happened since last we gathered together. Some seats which were filled are now empty. I request that we provide a moment of silence for fourth year student Doris Boot, who, we learned only a week ago, was killed alongside her mother, brother, and sister by Death Eaters. The House of Ravenclaw has lost a brilliant, gentle-hearted witch, and we honor her, tonight.”

Not even the Slytherins dared break the silence. Hermione looked at her empty plate. There was a raw, vicious ache in her chest, which made no sense, no sense at all—she’d never heard of Doris Boot, had never even considered that Terry, in her world, had had family who’d been killed by Death Eaters, but the Ravenclaw table was ashen to a man, and under the Gryffindor table Mary had reached over Hermione’s lap to seize Lily’s hand. Up at the High Table, Professor McGonagall dabbed at her face with a handkerchief, and then offered it to Professor Flitwick, who hid his face behind it entirely and looked at no one.

“They were very close,” whispered Lily. Her voice was damp. “She—she was in Charms Club, she was very clever, Professor Flitwick wanted to sponsor her mastery after she graduated—”

Hermione, in spite of herself, put a hand to Lily’s back, and rubbed between her shoulder blades. Lily gave her a wet smile, and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

“There is little I can say,” said Professor Dumbledore, his long face longer, somehow, with grief, “that can make this bearable. We are at war. Each and every one of you is aware of this. Doris is not the first student we have lost, and she may not be the last. So long as I remain Headmaster, Hogwarts will be safe, but outside the world is growing darker. Here, you may feel frustration, helplessness, powerlessness—and you should be commended for feeling that way. It is the mark of a good soul, to wish to help when you can, at that time, do nothing.

“That being said, I must be plain.” He folded his hands into the long sleeves of his dark robes, and his eyes flickered over the Hall—from Gryffindor to Slytherin, pausing on each table between. “The war has no place within these walls. Anyone found to be recruiting for the individual known as Lord Voldemort will be removed from the castle without hesitation.”

Whispering began at the Hufflepuff table. In spite of herself, Hermione looked over her shoulder at the Slytherins. The Slytherins stared back. One of them—her guts twisted—one of them was Mulciber. He looked younger, more darkly handsome, and there was a small, vicious smile playing around his lips as he leaned over to whisper into another boy’s ear.

“There is no room in this school for division,” said Professor Dumbledore, and Hermione looked back up at the High Table. “Beyond anything else, when we are in this school, when we are protected by these halls, we are, first and foremost, the children of Hogwarts. While I do not believe—” and here he cast another look at the tables, at Ravenclaw, at Slytherin “—that anyone here would do such a thing, I must, however, insist—the Civil War does not belong here. Anyone who believes differently may leave this hall immediately.”

No one moved. Lucinda Nakama had turned roughly the same shade as spoiled milk. She swallowed, hard, and another student, a third year by the look of him, bent his head to talk to her. Hermione frowned—the look on her face had turned even more grey, whatever he said, and she was moving to confront the boy when next to her, Lily stood and marched down the table to deal with it. _You’re not the Prefect,_ Hermione told herself, and slowly sat down again. _Let it be._

 _Yeah,_ said a voice in her head like Ron. _You, let things be? That’s like taking ugly off a gnome._

“Now,” said Professor Dumbledore. “On to other things. The Forbidden Forest is forbidden—” His eyes twinkled, just slightly “—to any student not in the company of a teacher. As per usual, Mr. Filch will be inspecting all mail and packages as they enter the castle for any potential tampering or Dark magics. Similarly, so far as I understand, Mr. Filch has added several new items to his list of banned goods, including—”

Hermione stopped listening. Lily and Mary, bless them, tried to pull her into conversation, but she kept mostly quiet, and after a while Lily seemed to pick up on the fact that she was being tired, not snappish, and drew Mary’s attention away from her. Hermione picked at her food, trying to get herself to eat, and to stop staring up and down the table, looking for faces she’d know and not know, all at once.

 _I don’t think the war is outside these walls,_ she thought. _No matter what Professor Dumbledore expects._

She was still thinking that as they made their way up to Gryffindor Tower, and she clambered into her four-poster in the fifth year’s dorm to sleep. The thought lingered, even into her dreams.


	6. The Dueling Ring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for depression/trauma--Hermione isn't doing well. 
> 
> Thanks for your patience guys!!! I had law school finals and then quarantine has fucked my brain up. Also I'm studying for the bar so my brain is all over as it is.

Hermione woke early enough the next morning to change and slip out of the fifth year dormitory before Lily or Mary even stirred in their beds. She’d been too tired to sleep, as if that made _any_ sense at all. Besides: it was only half-seven, she hadn’t been on her own since she came through the Veil, and she wanted to _breathe_.

“Watch it,” said the Fat Lady churlishly as she pushed the portrait shut again. “You might be new, but I remember when people are rude, you know!”

“Sorry,” said Hermione, and found a back staircase down to the Great Hall.

Up in the Highlands, all of the heat from the heavy southern summer had utterly dissipated. She was glad she’d grabbed a jumper out of Marlene’s trunk on her way downstairs. There was a definite chill in the air as she made her way out of the Entrance Hall and down onto the grounds, towards the lake, aimlessly, trying to think of somewhere to go. She wasn’t supposed to know where anything was, here, but this early she doubted anyone would be paying attention, and besides; with her hood up, she could be any Gryffindor. Hermione tugged her hood over her head and cut right across the grass, past the greenhouses and forward into the edge of the Forbidden Forest. She’d followed this path countless times over her fifth year to get to Grawp’s hiding place, always hidden, always with Harry and Ron. Now, she stopped about ten yards into the trees, sat down on a log, and, to her utter horror, burst into tears.

She hadn’t cried since she’d been in the hospital. She’d teared up, and certainly she’d had to blow her nose any number of times, but she hadn’t _cried_ like this: gasping, gulping sobs that seemed much too loud for the cold morning air, awful things that she’d pay a thousand Galleons not to have to suffer. But she couldn’t stop, once she started—she cried and cried, her sleeve turning wet with tears as she tried to wipe her face, until she couldn’t breathe with all the snot bunched up in her nose.

It was only once she gagged on her own breath that the tears slowed. Hermione transfigured a leaf into a handkerchief, blew her nose, blew it again, and wiped her eyes before folding the thing up into a neat little square, breathing hard in the shadows of the trees.

_It’s not the same._

Hogwarts was not the same without Harry and Ron. Hogwarts was not the same without having to suffer Lavender snoring every night. Even the _portraits_ were different; the Fat Lady was wearing yellow, not pink, and the old pictures of witches and warlocks on the way up to Gryffindor Tower were all in the wrong order. It wasn’t the same, and she’d meant to make the best of this, but it _hurt_ being here. It ached like a sliver of ice had cut into her chest, and stayed there, throbbing all the time.

Hermione pulled the Orbis Sanguis from her pocket. She should pitch it, she thought. Throw it into the trees and never look for it. Get rid of it. But it was from _there_ , not here; it had brought her here, the awful thing, and it could not bring her back, but it was of _her_ world and not _their_ world and the thought of throwing it away made her nauseous. Her palms sweat. Hermione turned it over and over in her hands, watching the needles whirl. The arrow marked _ansuz_ — _Sirius_ —pointed unerringly back towards Hogwarts, the tip of the needle trembling as if in excitement. _Hagalaz_ and _isaz_ pointed south, back towards London— _Walburga_ , she thought, staring at the little needle marked with _hagalaz_ , _that is most definitely Walburga_ —but _isaz_ was still unknown, as was _ur_. _Yr_ , though— _yr_ was pointed not towards the castle, but towards the greenhouses, and it quivered a little back and forth as if it was struggling to determine the proper direction to point.

Hermione wiped her face again, put the Orbis on the tree trunk, and pointed her wand at it.

“ _Aparecium_ ,” she said.

The spell struck with blinding force, like a flare from lit magnesium. Nothing happened. The Orbis rattled a little, and was still.

“ _Mysterium revelio_ ,” she said, and this time a shining silver light emerged from the end of her wand. It coated the Orbis Sanguis like a blanket, and for a moment the thing hummed like a tuning fork that had been struck, but still: it did nothing.

“You talked to me,” she said to it, feeling mad as a hatter but unable to help herself. “You _bloody talked to me_ in that space between, you had a _face_ , you wretched thing— _familia magicum revelio_!”

There was a flash of mustard-colored light—her own magic—and a clash of silver—the Orbis’s magic—before the shining silhouette of a small raven stood on top of the Orbis Sanguis. Its claws curled tight around the compass, as if it was about to take flight and carry it off. It was smaller, certainly, than the raven that had appeared in St. Mungo’s, but it was also clearer, with sharper edges; _stronger,_ she thought. Hermione stared at the raven, flummoxed.

“You never did that before,” she told it. “I cast that spell a thousand times back in—you _never_ did that before.”

The raven croaked. It actually _croaked_ , and Hermione jumped so badly she almost dropped her wand. The raven looked at her, cocking its head as if it was quite sure she was a true idiot, and then hopped off the Orbis Sanguis. Hermione stopped being nervous, and studied it. It was, to all intents and purposes, an actual raven—solid, real—but made of silver light. When she reached out to touch it, she felt nothing but a slight tingling in her fingers. But it wasn’t, she thought, at _all_ like a Patronus Charm. Patronuses had some kind of _feeling_ about them, a joy, a happiness that came alongside their corporeal forms. This felt—different. Like that high, pure magic from a mountaintop. Like rustling wings.

“What do you _want_ ,” she said, in a very small voice, and the raven vanished. It didn’t even make a sound. One moment it was there, and the next it was gone, leaving nothing but the Orbis Sanguis and Hermione standing in the Forbidden Forest with swollen eyes and a snotty nose, tear-tracks still drying on her cheeks. For all the evidence it left behind, it could have been a dream. She let out a huff, wiped her face again, cast a Clear-Away Charm on herself—she’d learned _that_ , she thought, with a certain vicious pleasure, coming up with the hex that had disfigured Marietta Edgecombe—and shoved the Orbis Sanguis back into her pocket.

“You’d better not try anything else,” she told it, as she stomped out of the woods. “I know Croaker disabled the transportation rune, but I’m sure you have other tricks up your sleeve, and I’m telling you now: I don’t care _what_ Sirius does to himself, I am _not_ dying in his place.”

Of course, since it was only metal and glass, the Orbis said nothing back. Still, she made a mental note to write to Unspeakable Croaker later that day. If the Orbis was conjuring up the Black family magic for her now—now, when it never had before—maybe there were other things Croaker could tell her about the charm that she needed to know about.

The Great Hall was starting to fill with students when she finally made her way back inside and took a place at the Gryffindor table. Peter Pettigrew was awake and sitting halfway down the table, reading a book and eating oatmeal without looking at the bowl. Hermione yanked her eyes away from him, and tried not to snarl.

 _You killed them,_ she wanted to say. _James and Lily Potter died because of you, Harry grew up with no parents because of you, Voldemort came back because of you—_

But none of that had happened yet. _None of it_ , she told herself, and yanked the coffee pot close to her with a little growl of irritation. He’d destroyed Harry’s life, and Sirius’s, and Professor Lupin’s; he’d _brought Voldemort back_ in her world, but in this one?

 _He’s a fifteen-year-old boy,_ said Magda in her head. _I would hope that in spite of everything in the world going mad at the moment you would still be able to give a fifteen-year-old boy the benefit of the doubt._

It did no good to glare, she told herself. She poured herself coffee, collecting a piece of toast from the plate and buttering it rather aggressively. She would keep an eye on him, yes, but for now—for now she would only watch. If he did anything— _anything_ —she would act, but not before then. She would wait, and give him the benefit of the doubt.

Professor McGonagall was walking up and down the table handing out schedules; she nodded when she caught Hermione’s eye, and Hermione, at a loss for what else to do, nodded back at her.

“Nine o’clock in my office, Miss Granger,” said Professor McGonagall, and handed Pettigrew his schedule. He took it, and almost dropped his spoon of oatmeal on his robes. “Don’t forget.”

“Yes, Professor.”

“Watch what you’re doing, Pettigrew,” snapped Professor McGonagall, and Pettigrew yelped, and spilled his oatmeal over the table. Hermione, in spite of herself, drew her wand.

“ _Evanesco_ ,” she said, and the oatmeal vanished. Professor McGonagall and Pettigrew both gave her surprised looks; Pettigrew actually blushed a little when he saw her face, and peered at his newspaper again. Professor McGonagall’s eyebrows crawled high up her forehead.

“Five points to Gryffindor, Miss Granger,” she said, after a moment, “for a particularly fine Vanishing Spell.”

Hermione flushed, and had never been so glad that her skin was too dark to show her embarrassment. “Thank you, Professor.”

“I see, at least, that in Transfiguration you’ll be placed with the sixth years,” said Professor McGonagall, and handed Lupin, who’d loped up behind her with a tremendous yawn cracking his jaw, his own schedule. “Sit before you fall over, Lupin, you look half-dead.”

“Sorry, Professor,” Lupin mumbled, and crashed hard into the bench next to Pettigrew. Hermione frowned. She couldn’t remember if last night had been the full moon or not—but surely not? The Professor Lupin she remembered had always missed classes the day after full moons, and—her clenched hands eased—he’d been helping first years find their way to the castle last night, after dark. No, not the full moon. Just boys being boys, then.

She turned back to her plate, and ate in silence.

At precisely 8:57, Hermione knocked on the door of Professor McGonagall’s office on the ground floor, and waited. It took exactly three seconds before a throat cleared inside and Professor McGonagall said, “Enter.” This time, Professor McGonagall’s office had been cleared of almost everything but the desk; instead of a carpet and armchairs, there was now an open space in the middle, and a chalk outline on the floor, almost like a very small dueling arena. In the center, someone had set a rough-hewn wooden table. On top were, in order, a kitten in a wicker basket, an empty cage, an unlit candle, and a series of small, oval stones stacked into a tower. Professor McGonagall was sitting at her desk, going through stacks of what looked like letters; she lifted her head, eyed Hermione, and went back to reviewing her mail.

“Miss Granger,” she said. “Sit. I’ll be done with this momentarily.”

Hermione sat.

It took another full minute before Professor McGonagall finished her letter, folded it up, set it aside, and Vanished the whole stack. She looked at Hermione for a time, and then nodded, briskly.

“It is rare that Hogwarts takes transfer students, Miss Granger,” she said. “The difficulty in adjusting students to different class levels—for every school teaches different subjects in each year—makes it an…undesirable position to be in, to say the least. However, we have endeavored to establish a schedule for you over the next two days to determine your abilities in each of the subjects which Hogwarts offers to its students. Thankfully as it’s only the first day there will be time to catch you up with whatever coursework the professors give their students when you are eventually placed into the proper classes, whatever those might be.”

Hermione had a sudden, horrifying image of being placed into third year Charms, and swallowed.

“You will begin,” said Professor McGonagall, “with Transfiguration.”

The first day was a test of core subjects. After Professor McGonagall had her graduate to Conjuring a toucan out of thin air, and said, in a firm-but-pleased voice, that she would see her in her sixth year Transfiguration courses that coming Friday, a round, portly man named Professor Slughorn came bustling in to test her on Potions. The shock of having a Potions Master hovering over her that _wasn’t_ Snape almost threw her off, but Hermione brewed three different kinds of antivenins and then the Draught of Peace under his watchful eye, and did so, she thought, with aplomb. Sixth year there, too. Professor Flitwick’s tests were, perhaps, the easiest: he started from first year Charms and worked his way up to nonverbals, which Hermione had only ever tried in secret and, as of yet, had not succeeded with; still, she managed all of the spells Professor Flitwick requested, including a few they had not gone over in her own fifth year course but that she had tried out on her own after sneaking a peek at Fred and George’s sixth year textbooks. “Excellent,” said Professor Flitwick, his mustachios quivering, “quite excellent, Miss Granger,” and her chest grew warm. Astronomy, too, was simple; she recited all the answers quickly and cleanly, and the professor, a very old, very sickly-looking woman named Frostpike, seemed pleased with her understanding of the relationship between the constellations and the positions of the stars within a summer sky.

It was in Herbology that she first began to stumble. She did all right with everything at first—Self-Fertilizing Shrubs were easy, as were the Fanged Geraniums, the Chinese Chomping Cabbage, and reciting the rules for the proper care of gurdyroots—but then Professor Borage, the nervous-looking old man with grassy hair, had her trying to prune Devil’s Snare, of all things. Casting _Lumos Solem_ helped matters not at all, as lighting up the tip of her wand meant the Devil’s Snare recoiled from her so violently it broke out of its terracotta pot and wrapped its many creepers around Professor Borage. It took a full ten minutes to get them to let go of him, and Hermione had said _I’m sorry_ so many times she thought she might actually combust with embarrassment.

Defense Against the Dark Arts went only slightly better; the professor, a tall, thin black man with an eyepatch who introduced himself as Professor Imad Iqbal, had her cast every defensive spell she knew, and then began to call out ones she’d never even heard of, including, of all things, the Entrail-Expelling Curse, which she flat out refused to cast because of the possibly violent and vile consequences. Professor Iqbal nodded when she did that, and simply moved on to casting the Imperius on her and seeing how long it took before she could throw it off. When she tossed it off—after about fifteen minutes of struggling; she’d never been as naturally talented at Defense as Harry was—she found herself on top of a desk in the midst of an Irish jig.

She’d been casting all day when Professor Iqbal finally called out the Patronus Charm. Hermione took a huge breath of air, and closed her eyes. She had to work to find a memory that felt happy. Or rather—she had to work to keep it feeling happy, instead of letting grief sour it all. It was a memory of her and Harry and Ron, settled on the grass after one of their OWL exams. They’d been taking a break from studying—“ _for once_ ,” Ron had said, rolling his eyes—and had gone out to sit in the grass by the Lake, taking in sun and getting away from the stifling anxiety of the castle. It was one of the only times that year that Harry had seemed genuinely happy and content, letting go, if only for a moment, of the broiling guilt and rage and anguish that had driven him into the ground all year. Ron had immediately propped his head up on his bookbag and dozed off with a bit of grass between his lips, and Hermione had sat between them, reading a book— _not_ studying, thank you very much, only out of personal enjoyment. The sun had been warm on her back, and she’d been with her friends, and after a while Ginny and Luna had come to join them, and it’d been happy, that day—relief and warmth and joy and the comfort of going back to Gryffindor Tower afterwards to nap before cramming for the next exam—

“ _Expecto Patronum_ ,” she said firmly.

The shape that erupted from her wand was not her silvery otter. It was much, much larger—at least three times the size—and it darted through the air so fast that for a second or two she couldn’t make out more than the flash of a tail. Professor Iqbal and Professor McGonagall watched with wide eyes as the wolf— _wolf_ , Hermione thought, _why a wolf_?—slowed to a pause in midair, settling on its haunches with her tongue lolling out, ears pricked forward. Hermione swallowed hard, something aching beneath her ribs. She’d _liked_ her otter, even if it had surprised her at first.

_Is everything getting taken away from me now?_

“Excellent!” said Professor Iqbal, and broke into an actual smile. He looked younger when he smiled, perhaps in his thirties rather than his fifties. “Well done, Granger, absolutely fantastic—”

Hermione waved her wand, and the Patronus vanished.

“Well, I see no reason for you not to be placed with the fifth year defensive courses,” said Professor McGonagall, sounding a little rattled. “A corporeal Patronus at your age, good lord—”

“Thank you,” said Hermione a little numbly.

“Well, I’m off to dinner,” said Professor Iqbal, and Hermione realized, to her shock, that they had not paused for lunch. She couldn’t even remember it being suggested. Apparently she’d lost track of time. “You should eat too, Granger; casting all day puts a wicked strain on the insides.”

“Thank you, Professor,” she said, and without another word Professor Iqbal left the office. Still, Hermione couldn’t quite move. She stood there, a little cold, a little sweaty, a little frozen, as Professor McGonagall collected up the papers she’d been working on, as well as the clipboard she’d been marking, and set them all in the top right-hand drawer of her desk.

“Is something the matter, Miss Granger?” said Professor McGonagall, and Hermione jumped.

“Oh. Um—not exactly.” She fumbled for a topic, and then said, “I thought the Imperius Curse was an Unforgivable.”

“It is,” said Professor McGonagall shortly. “Professor Iqbal has—obtained permission from the Ministry to cast it on sixth years and above. The thought is to teach students how to throw off its influence before they—encounter it elsewhere.”

Her tone was deliberately flat. Hermione thought about that for a while, and then said, “Oh.” It wasn’t—pleasant—certainly, but at least he had permission from the Ministry. _At least he’s not a Death Eater,_ she thought, and swayed on her feet.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Professor McGonagall, in a much more sensible voice, “sit down and have a biscuit before you faint, girl.”

Hermione did as she was told. The biscuits were a little dry, but pleasantly gingery and crisp, and it was only in eating that she realized quite how hungry she was; she took a second before Professor McGonagall closed the biscuit tin, and put it back on her desk.

“Now,” said Professor McGonagall, once Hermione had eaten not one but both of the biscuits. “Contrary to what appearances may present, Miss Granger, it is not, in fact, all that awful to be placed in a different year group than your age. It will, of course, be somewhat frustrating at times, but the differences in curriculums between Beauxbatons and Hogwarts would have resulted in this no matter how hard you worked.”

Hermione blinked at her.

“Schools teach things different ways in different places.” Professor McGonagall looked at her sternly through her spectacles. “It is my understanding that you were already getting along decently with the girls in the fifth year dormitories, and at least for core courses, you would be sharing it with them. As there’s—currently no student in the sixth year girls’ dormitory, and you’re already going to be taking fifth year classes, it is, perhaps, _not_ the end of the word for you to remain as you are?”

She couldn’t help it. Hermione hiccupped out a laugh. “No,” she said. “Not the end of the world.”

“There you have it, then,” said Professor McGonagall. She drew a fresh piece of parchment from somewhere, and waved her wand over it before passing it over to Hermione. “A full schedule will be drawn up for you tomorrow after your electives are tested on, but I feel fairly confident that that’s where you’ll be placed for core courses. As for electives—”

“Professor,” said Hermione, out of nowhere, and then blushed. Professor McGonagall didn’t do well with being interrupted, most of the time. Thankfully, Professor McGonagall only raised her eyebrow in silence. “Have you ever, er.”

Professor McGonagall waited.

“Have you ever heard of a Patronus—changing?” Hermione twisted her hands in her lap. She’d read a lot about Patronuses, after Harry had started using one in third year, but nothing she’d ever read about them had said they could _change shape_. “Start as one thing and—and be something else, later?”

All at once, Professor McGonagall changed. She peered at Hermione as if from a great distance, and then, slowly, her eyebrows lowered. Her eyes, if possible, grew a bit soft. Hermione stared down into her lap rather than meet Professor McGonagall’s gaze. She’d already cried enough today, she told herself sternly. And this wasn’t _her_ Professor McGonagall anyway. The photos on the mantel proved that.

“Sometimes,” Professor McGonagall said, slowly, “Patronus forms can change shape after—after a very great shock, or a change in the person so drastic that the original Patronus no longer fully applies. It isn’t common, I suppose, but it is not _rare_ either. Especially not in times of—great strife.”

Hermione nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

“Most commonly—” Professor McGonagall leaned forward, just a little. Her voice grew softer, though still not _gentle_ —it was Professor McGonagall, after all. “Most commonly it occurs after one has experienced a great loss. Grief is not something that can be properly survived without something in a person changing, and that is often reflected in the form of a Patronus.”

Hermione took a rattling breath, and nodded. 

“What was it before?” said Professor McGonagall. “Your corporeal Patronus.”

“An otter.”

“Hm.” Professor McGonagall tipped her head, just the way a cat would. “Clever, inquisitive, loves to teach. Female otters mate for life, though males are—perhaps a bit less monogamous in their affections. Good animals for teachers, administrators, scholars.”

Hermione looked up at her in surprise.

“I am an Animagus,” said Professor McGonagall. “I was quite determined to learn as much about whatever animal I was to turn into as I could, and unlike you, Miss Granger, I did not have the advantage of being able to cast a corporeal Patronus before I first took my animal form. The potion and regimen are very strict, you see. You don’t often know what your animal shape would be before you become it for the first time. The lucky ones have their Patronus and Animagus forms match, but that isn’t always a guarantee.”

“Oh,” said Hermione. “And you—thought you might be an otter?”

“I thought it was a possibility,” said Professor McGonagall. She tapped her fingers against her desk. “Now, a wolf—I know less about their—mundane forms, though of course every witch or wizard worth their salt knows enough about werewolves to be able to recognize one on sight during a full moon—”

Hermione, thinking of half the school her third year, couldn’t help but snort a little.

“As I was saying,” said Professor McGonagall, and Hermione wiped her face clean of amusement. “I know little about mundane wolves beyond what everyone knows. They are pack creatures, very clever, very cunning hunters; they take care of their pups and their packmates; they do not suffer intruders in their territory but will often accept lone wolves into the pack to supplant their own numbers if necessary. And they are—quite loving creatures in their own way. Very dedicated. Does that help?”

She turned it over in her mind. It seemed—logical, she supposed. She didn’t know as much about psychology as she wanted, but to have a great shock or a change or an upheaval would, she guessed, alter something internal that could not be put back the way it had been. The experience itself would change it.

“I didn’t know that could affect your magic,” she said, after a long time. “Grief, I mean.”

Professor McGonagall frowned. “Grief is one of the things that can and will _eradicate_ your magic if it is left to fester,” she said. “Nothing is more damaging to a person’s magic than emotions left to run wild. There is a reason, Miss Granger, why grief can destroy you. For witches and wizards, it is, sadly, quite literal, if one does not learn to live with the grief.”

For a moment, Hermione couldn’t breathe. She pressed a hand to her chest. _Lose my magic?_ Lose the one thing—she closed her eyes, counted backwards from thirty, tried to pretend that her ears weren’t ringing. _Nonononononononono—_

“Did no one tell you?” said Professor McGonagall. “I would have thought, the Healers at St. Mungo’s—”

“Nobody said—” Hermione took a deep gulp of air, and then another. “Nobody—” 

“Head between your knees,” said Professor McGonagall, and Hermione obeyed. She didn’t have a choice. The tears came thick and fast, and if she didn’t do this, she wouldn’t be able to breathe properly, wouldn’t be able to stop hyperventilating. _Lose my magic? Lose it? I can’t lose it, I can’t—_

It took a few minutes before she could get herself back under control. Hermione left her head between her knees for a minute or two longer, choosing embarrassment over losing control. As she sat there, staring at the floor, Professor McGonagall said, “I understand that you’ve been working with a mind healer from St. Mungo’s, Miss Granger—when was the last time the pair of you met?” 

Hermione sat up, slowly. She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “A week ago. The McKinnons would take me to see him, but I didn’t—I don’t know how to talk to him about—about any of it. I don’t know him.”

Professor McGonagall nodded. She took a breath. “Well,” she said. “Perhaps, then, you should change to another mind healer. There is no shame in needing time to find one that fits you.”

She _was not going to cry again._ Not today. Hermione fisted her hand up in her pocket, around the Orbis Sanguis. She couldn’t even _tell_ anyone why she was upset; what was the point of going to see a mind healer?

“I believe the hospital wing matron here knows of several people who might be a better fit for you,” said Professor McGonagall. That gentleness was back in her tone. “If you wish to see someone else.”

Hermione swallowed, over and over. She said, “I’ll—maybe. Maybe.”

Professor McGonagall did not push. She said nothing at all, really. She rolled up the parchment with Hermione’s core schedule, and handed it across to her. Hermione looked up at her, at her tiny spectacles and sharp bobbed hair and the silvery-grey waistcoat with the watch-chain leading into her pocket, and she took the scroll without a word.

“Speak to Madam Pomfrey by the end of the week,” said Professor McGonagall. “If only to hear what she has to say. You do not have to make a decision as of yet, but it’s best to get in to the Hospital Wing to speak to her _before_ the first years get too deep into their Charms curriculum. Soon they’ll start sprouting feathers, and she’ll be very distracted.”

A wobbly smile prickled at her lips. “Yes, Professor.”

“Now—wipe your face and go eat something.” Professor McGonagall waved a hand at her in a dismissal. “You’ll need food and sleep before tomorrow. For all that elective courses are, perhaps, less magically intensive than core classes, you look wretched tired, and the last thing I have patience for, Miss Granger, is for students sleeping through appointments with _me._ ”

.

.

.

“This,” said Mary, looking at Hermione’s schedule over her shoulder, “is barbaric.”

Hermione scowled a little. “It’s my schedule.”

“It’s _barbaric_ ,” said Mary. “Have you _heard_ of Ordinary Wizarding Levels? You’ll go mad trying to take all this lot—”

 _I’ve done it before,_ Hermione almost said, but bit her tongue. “It won’t be that bad—”

“Look at this—Lily, _look_ at this—what is this, eleven classes?”

“I’m only taking OWLs in half of them,” said Hermione, but clearly this didn’t help.

“Sixth year Charms and Transfiguration, sixth year Arithmancy and Ancient Runes—”

“Mary, give it back—”

“Mary,” said Lily, and Mary heaved a great sigh before letting Hermione have her schedule back. “Hermione’s a transfer, she’s on a different level than us in some courses.”

Mary let out a noise like a grouchy elephant, and let herself collapse onto the bench to snag some raspberry jam.

“She means well,” said Lily, ignoring Mary’s pointed “ _Oi._ ” “She’s just exuberant. I hear sixth year is when you start doing all nonverbal spells, d’you reckon they’ll make you shift to nonverbal in your fifth year classes too?”

Hermione, who had wondered about this, shrugged. “Professor McGonagall didn’t say.”

“Maybe it’ll depend on the professor.” Lily tapped her spoon against her teeth, and then went back to stirring her coffee. “Fifth year History of Magic is at the same time as sixth year Transfiguration, isn’t it?”

“I’m in sixth year History of Magic,” said Hermione. “So either way I’ll be fine.”

“How d’you even know that?” said Mary, looking at Lily with horror and something akin to awe.

Lily tapped at her prefect’s badge. Then she said, “Though I suppose if something doesn’t fit into the Gryffindor timetable they might just stick you in to a Ravenclaw class.”

“Better hope not.” Mary jabbed a sausage with a knife. “They have class with the Slytherins.”

“Well, it _is_ a Wednesday,” said Lily with a sigh. “Probably those idiots will have cooked up something by now. They’ve had two whole days to plan it, after all.”

“Who’s an idiot?”

“Yeah,” said a voice, and suddenly something warm was pressed against her other side. Hermione froze as the Orbis Sanguis went blazing hot in the pocket of her skirt, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out. It was actually _burning_ her, and it _hurt_. “Honestly, Evans, you spend four whole years with us and you can’t come up with a better term for our brilliance—”

“Your machinations, you mean, Black,” said Lily severely, and frowned at him. Between them, Hermione shrank a little, and prodded at her eggs. Besides being _far_ too close for comfort—Sirius had hugged Harry like a bear every time they’d come across each other, but had never so much as done more than shake her hand once or twice—Sirius seemed content to ignore her in favor of ribbing Lily. If she didn’t say anything, maybe he wouldn’t notice her. “If _anything_ happens in Care of Magical Creatures this morning—”

“Ooo, will Madam Prefect put us in our place?”

“Madam Prefect will do exactly nothing,” said Lily. “But _I_ will shove your wand so far up your inbred arse that it chokes you.”

Hermione gagged on her coffee. _That_ , she thought, was why Lily Evans was definitely Harry’s mother.

“Ah, Lily, you’ve always been my favorite,” said Sirius happily, and snagged the platter of sausages. “Even when you tell tales about me to our fine new French friends— _bienvenue á Hogwarts, mademoiselle,_ ” he added, in absolutely flawless French, damn him. “ _Elle fait genre, mais en fait elle m’aime bien._ ”

Hermione finally turned to look at him. He looked—different. Of course he did. He was fifteen, she thought. Fifteen, and not yet ravaged by Azkaban or betrayal. His teeth were white and shining, and his face was still in that stark change between boy and not-boy, a little padded in some places, sharp and dangerous in others. The smile was the same, albeit less haunted. Wicked as anything and ready to bite. “ _Pardonnez-moi,_ ” she said, after a moment. “ _Je ne fais pas confiance aux étrangers_ _._ ”

He touched his heart. “You _wound_ me, mademoiselle, to think you’d call me stranger—me, your own yearmate—”

“She hasn’t met you yet, you git,” said Mary, her lip twitching into half a smile. “Stop acting like Dorian Gray.”

“They delight in torturing me with references I don’t understand,” said Sirius, but he bumped Hermione’s arm with his elbow, gently, as if to say, _I’m teasing, don’t worry._ “Sirius Black.”

“Hermione Granger,” said Hermione, and tried not to let her head spin too badly. “You’re a fifth year?”

“That’s what it said on my schedule, anyway,” said Sirius with an unhappy sigh. “Not that I’ll enjoy it at all.”

“Maybe if you put more thought into studying,” said Lily, clambering off the bench, “and less into being a prat, you’d do better.”

“Love you too, Lils,” said Sirius, and stole her coffee mug. Lily was stalking off. Hermione hesitated, looking at her half-eaten breakfast, but the instinct was too strong; she seized her bookbag, wrenching it half out from underneath Sirius—he yipped—and followed Lily out of the Great Hall.

The beacon of red hair was already halfway down the lawn when Hermione made her way out of the castle and onto the grounds, aiming precisely for the tree beside the Great Lake. Hermione crammed her schedule into her bookbag, wishing she’d found a larger bag—it was one of Marlene’s old ones, and she was desperately grateful for the loan, but she could only carry three textbooks at a time, and she wasn’t looking forward to going up to Gryffindor Tower every lunch period to switch books out as needed—before jogging down the path after her. From a distance, it looked as if she could be chasing Ginny—but no. Lily’s hair was darker, more deep-red than orange-red; she didn’t have freckles; her nose was different, and her eyes were…well, Harry’s eyes. Lily stopped by the tree, and when Hermione caught up, slowing by the water’s edge, she blinked with wide, startled eyes. 

Lily’s forehead creased, and she rubbed a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I buggered that in there, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“It’s okay,” said Hermione. Her ribs felt a bit tight from the jog, but it was loads better than she’d been less than two months ago; she’d take tightness over excruciating pain. “Um—sorry, you just—you seemed angry. I wanted to see if you were okay.”

Lily blinked again. She kicked a little stone into the water, and then said, “Yeah, I s’pose. They just get on my nerves sometimes, is all. I need to do better about my temper. I can’t let them get to me so easily anymore, now that I’m prefect.”

“Are they that bad?” said Hermione, and Lily heaved a great sigh that had two strands of hair fluttering in front of her mouth.

“I mean—you heard what Mary said. You get any of them on their own, Sirius or Remus or Peter, they’re decent enough blokes.” She paused. “Well, Sirius is a bit of a flirt, but that’s just his nature, he doesn’t mean anything by it that I can tell, and he’s not a lech or anything. Remus has a nasty temper if you catch him at the wrong time, and Peter can be—well, you can’t trust him to keep secrets. Sometimes they’ll go too far with the jokes, like they did with Mary last year, but when they realize it they usually apologize, so for the most part they don’t _really_ mean any harm.”

Lily fell silent, and scuffed her foot along the dirt. Hermione looked back up at the school, and realized that there was a boy in the distance in a heavy dark cloak, looking at them. When he saw her looking, he disappeared back into the Entrance Hall.

“Potter’s a berk,” she said, abruptly. Hermione looked back at her, and waited. “He was mostly all right until last year—he could be a prat, but he wasn’t _horrible_ , and he was—nice-ish, if you caught him alone—and then he just—I dunno. It’s stupid. I think the four of them have a bet on to see if he can get me to go on a date with him before we graduate. But when they’re all together they’re insufferable, they treat people like—”

Lily stopped again, and sighed.

“Boys are idiots,” said Hermione after a moment, thinking not of James Potter, but of Ron, and Harry and Ron not speaking for part of fourth year, and—well, a lot of other things. She pushed them away. “Doesn’t mean they’re nasty at heart.”

“I know,” said Lily. “I just—it’s stupid, that’s all. And I have a temper.” She gestured to her hair. “Not to be a stereotype about it, or anything.”

Hermione shrugged.

“Sorry to make you miss breakfast,” said Lily.

“You didn’t. I wasn’t very hungry.” She hesitated. “Are you in Care of Magical Creatures?”

“Yeah.” Lily’s mouth quirked up at the corner. “Come on, I’ll take you over. Professor Kettleburn probably won’t have read any of his interdepartmental memos; he might not know you’re in the class yet.” 

The Gryffindor fifth years had Care of Magical Creatures with the Hufflepuffs, which was a _marked_ improvement over the Care of Magical Creatures class in her own universe. The Hufflepuffs, she’d always thought, were a joy to work with, and even if one or two of them seemed too terrified to actually say boo to a goose, let alone interact with a thestral, she didn’t have to worry about someone slipping and accidentally-on-purpose knocking her or one of her classmates into the bucket of small rabbits they were disemboweling. “Thestrals,” said Professor Kettleburn, as they wiped blood off their hands, “are a bit above the average for what I would typically show in the first class of your OWL year, but as You-Know-Who and his people have been recently discovered to be training their own herds as attack animals, I thought it best to teach you how to handle these magnificent creatures, especially considering many of you will be completely incapable of recognizing them on sight. Now, thestrals may be carnivorous, but they live and hunt in herds, and there is one thestral, typically a lead mare, who will decide where the herd flies and what they hunt—” 

Hermione, who’d been grouped with the third of the class who _could_ see thestrals—among them Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, and a Hufflepuff whose name she did not know—watched the animals rip the flesh off the dead rabbits and felt a little sick. It only eased when one of the young ones nudged hard into her hip with its bony head. The Hufflepuff student, a vaguely familiar-looking girl with dark blonde hair who’d jumped at every snapped branch, watched with wide eyes as Hermione crouched down to the foal’s level to scratch the hollows in its skeletal cheeks.

“They’re all right, really,” said Hermione, feeling a little silly, and very much like Hagrid. She’d never been all that interested in thestrals before now. But—she wasn’t sure. They were odd looking, and she’d never thought about them much before—

Well, before the Department of Mysteries.

“They’re all right,” said Hermione again, and moved to stroke the baby’s thin neck. The baby thestral made a little sound, almost like a growl but sweeter, and leaned into the touch. “Honestly. They’re just—strange-looking.”

The Hufflepuff girl gave her an unsure-but-game smile, and then squealed when a nearby thestral cracked a rabbit’s ribcage in half with its teeth.

“Correct,” said Professor Kettleburn, looking delighted. “Like many magical creatures we’ve studied, ladies and gentlemen, thestrals are generally only dangerous if threatened, or—well—if they think you’re prey. Which happens rarely, as thestrals tend to go for smaller creatures, such as rabbits, rats, owls, or foxes—basically anything smaller than a Labrador.”

“So they could eat our cats?” said one Hufflepuff girl, looking horrified.

“No, the thestrals on Hogwarts grounds are quite well trained. They leave the pets be. And you’ve no cause to fear them normally—unless trained otherwise, they’re as gentle as mundane horses. It is, after all, usually humans that turn animals against their nature, whether the creatures are magical _or_ mundane. Now—for those of you who can see them, which of you can tell me which of these beautiful creatures is the lead mare?”

Her fifth year courses, she found, were somehow—not harder, exactly, but more stressful than her sixth year courses. Sixth year was simply _class_ : nonverbal spells aside, it wasn’t any more stressful than it had to be, not because the Slytherins didn’t whisper behind her back (because they did) or because the courses weren’t difficult (they were) but because she didn’t really know anyone in the class. She’d never heard of any of her classmates in her sixth year courses, and that made it less worrisome. She didn’t turn around and find a vaguely familiar face handing her a mouse to transform into a machete, or something.

Her Defense Against the Dark Arts, Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, and Potions classes were with the fifth years. Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Charms, Transfiguration, and History of Magic were with the sixth years. And then there was Healing and Alchemy—“started only last year,” Professor McGonagall had said, “and at the beginning they were only offered to seventh years, but Madam Pomfrey and Professor Myron both recommended we expand the courses to OWL level and up—they aren’t going to be tested on until your NEWT year, however, so keep that in mind”—which were with the rest of the fifth years. (She told herself, even as her stomach hollowed out, that at the end of her first Healing class on Thursday she would stay behind to talk to Madam Pomfrey. Even if she didn’t like talking to mind healers, the alternative—losing her magic—terrified her.)

Lily was in all of her fifth year electives, thankfully, which meant she at least had someone to talk to, but people _whispered_. It was like the _Quibbler_ article all over again, only instead of whispering about Harry and Professor Dumbeldore, people kept murmuring about her.

“—heard she came from Beauxbatons—”

“—parents were killed, that’s what my dad said, he works in the Ministry of Magic office that processes international students—”

“—Dumbledore brought her over _personally_ —”

“—killed a manticore—”

(This one, Hermione had no idea where it came from. She’d never once mentioned a manticore in her fake background.)

“—parents were killed because she’s Muggleborn—”

“—could see thestrals, you reckon she saw her parents off it—”

“—thought France wasn’t as bad off as us?”

“—hair’s like a bush, look at her, doesn’t Beauxbatons have a looks requirement or something—”

Lily snapped at the boy who’d whispered _that_ little gem, a fifth year Slytherin in their Healing class, and Hermione decided to stop paying attention. She should have known better than to listen in the first place.

Herbology was easier. In Potions she worked with Mary, who seemed to have a good head on her shoulders as to what ingredient to add when but had a terrible memory as to how many times she’d stirred a cauldron, or when she lowered the flames to hit the right boiling point. All in all, it was a little like working with Neville, except minus the sheer panic-induced anxiety of being around Severus Snape. (Snape _was_ in the class, though. She recognized him immediately and almost dropped her python scales into her potion. Thin and somehow even lankier than when she’d known him, with crooked teeth and a long pale nose, dressed in carefully darned robes and with his hair hanging unwashed down to his jaw. He hovered in the back of the room over his own cauldron, which was beat up and worn, and he always worked alone. Professor Slughorn seemed content to let him be.)

(He also, usually, finished brewing earlier than anyone else, and would sit there making notes in his textbook while waiting for the class period to end. It was incredibly aggravating.)

Her first DADA class was a back-to-back session on Thursday afternoon. In her time at Hogwarts, Hermione had seen the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom set up five different ways. For Quirrell, it was filled with garlic and Sneakoscopes, defensive charms to ward off whatever monsters he’d made up in his own mind. For Lockhart—she flushed a little with embarrassment—the shelves had been filled with copies of his own, misappropriated publications, and the air had always smelled of his lavender shampoo. Professor Lupin’s creature tank had always left a calm burbling in the background, and he’d played music fairly frequently while they worked. Barty Crouch, as Moody, had set up the classroom like a battlefield, and Umbridge—

Well, Umbridge hadn’t been a teacher. There was no point in thinking about _that_.

Professor Iqbal’s classroom was laid out in strict lines. Desks were pushed together in pairs, two by two, and each pair had a namecard on it. They were _not_ , she found, paired with a housemate. In the front of the room there was a long, oblong track laid out in the floor, marked with tape, like a dueling ground. “As we said last time,” said Professor Iqbal, as they all filed through the room looking for their names, “we’ll be trading partners every three weeks, and I’ve made sure—yes, Black, sit down—that you won’t be working with anyone twice. No, Potter, do _not_ look at me like that, we talked about this last time, the point of working with someone outside of your own House is to work with a stranger, you don’t always get to pick and choose in the outside world—”

 _Alice Crouch_ , read the name beside hers on the table. Hermione sat down in one of the chairs, and looked at the empty seat for a moment. _Crouch? I thought the last Crouches were the two Bartys, who—_

“Hullo,” said a voice. The most anxious Hufflepuff, the girl with dark blonde hair, dropped into the seat next to her. Hermione still could not place why she looked familiar, but she was sure it would come to her eventually. “Sorry, sorry I’m late, sorry—you’re Hermia, right?”

“Hermione,” said Hermione. Crouch gave her a tiny smile.

“Cheers.”

“Potter, Fawcett, Crouch, Granger, come to the front, if you please.” 

Crouch, if possible, went skeletal white. Hermione just stood, and waited for her, as James Potter loped to the front of the classroom, followed closely by his Hufflepuff seatmate, a small, somewhat skinny boy with bad acne scarring and hair that could use a good trim. Professor Iqbal stood between the four of them, his eyepatch white today.

“To reiterate,” said Professor Iqbal, and waved his wand. The chalk scrawled _Defensive Maneuvers_ across the blackboard. “It is my job, for the next year, to ensure that you survive. And, yes, to pass your Ordinary Wizarding Levels, but ladies and gentlemen, regardless of how safe we are inside Hogwarts—and yes, I would say, at this point, that Hogwarts is, perhaps, the safest place in Britain—none of you should be blind to the dangers that exist outside of these walls. It is my _job_ ,” he said again, “to give each of you the tools to protect yourselves and your families should this civil war continue.”

The whole class, even James Potter, were silent. Sirius looked surprisingly—well, serious. His eyes had gone dark, and he was staring at the wall without blinking. Next to him, his Hufflepuff seatmate, a girl Hermione _thought_ was named Patil but wasn’t entirely sure, bit her lip hard enough to bleach the skin. Next to Hermione, Alice Crouch heaved a shivering breath.

“I don’t say this to frighten you,” said Professor Iqbal. “I’m sure you are all well aware of the dangers in the world. The _Daily Prophet_ keeps everyone decently well-informed. But I need you all to be clear regarding the seriousness of what we will be studying in this class. This is not just for your OWLs or NEWTs. Spells you learn here may actually save your life. And you need to keep in mind that dueling in a classroom is much different than fighting off someone trying to kill you.”

No one said a word.

“Now,” said Professor Iqbal. “We’ve gone over the rules of dueling, but just for clarification. If you are no longer capable of casting, you are out. If you wish to give up, simply send red sparks into the air with your wand. The spells you are allowed to use—” he waved his wand again “—are on the board.”

Hermione frowned at the list, but said nothing. It was all spells she’d learned via the DA, and she didn’t feel uncomfortable with any of them, but providing a list of spells to choose from defeated the purpose of a free-for-all duel, in her opinion. Still, she wasn’t the one teaching, and considering how Dueling Club had gone in second year, she supposed there was good reason to limit the spells students could use. _Especially with Slytherins_.

“If you step outside of the dueling circle,” said Professor Iqbal, “you are also out. This is not a point system, because it’s not a traditional duel. I want to test where all of you are, and I can’t do that without seeing how you cast. After today we’ll start each class with two pairs testing their skills in the dueling ring before breaking into groups. So—to start. Crouch and Fawcett, please.” 

Alice Crouch was trembling so badly that Hermione thought she might faint as Fawcett stepped into the ring. Hermione bit her lip, and then bumped Alice with her elbow.

“Which one are you best with?”

Alice whipped her head around. “What?”

“Which spell?”

Alice peered at the board. Professor Iqbal waited patiently beside the dueling ring. “Um,” she said, after a moment. “I’m—”

“Don’t say it,” said Hermione. “Just—pick the one you’re best with and stay with it. Don’t stop moving. Don’t let him hit you.” She hesitated, and then squeezed Alice’s elbow. “And if you lose it’s okay. You’re learning. That’s the point.”

Alice gave her another unsure-but-game smile, this one much more wobbly, before nodding. “Okay.”

“Crouch,” said Professor Iqbal again, and Alice squeaked before jumping into the dueling circle. Professor Iqbal waved his wand a third time, and a delicately shaped Shield Charm erupted from the tape, curving into a high, oblong sphere over the duelists. Alice looked petrified. Fawcett just looked bored.

“The rules are these,” said Professor Iqbal. “When someone is defeated, we stop, and let partners step in as seconds. Whichever team wins the duel will then face the next team. The team that lasts the longest will win fifteen points each for their Houses.”

Across the classroom, James Potter and Sirius grinned at each other. Lupin simply looked at the dueling ring, eyebrows furrowing. Peter Pettigrew looked ready to faint.

“Go,” said Professor Iqbal.

“ _Incarcerous_ ,” said Fawcett, flicking his wand, and in the same moment, Alice squeaked, “ _Stupefy_!” and half-skipped to the side, almost like a frog—the _Incarcerous_ spell hit the interior of the Shield Charm and vanished—Alice’s _Stupefy_ was badly aimed, high over Fawcett’s head, and it disappeared—

“ _Stupefy_ ,” said Alice again, but her aim was off a second time, and Fawcett dodged easily, simply turning just enough to let the jet of red light pass him by—

“ _Expelliarmus_!”

Alice’s wand flew out of her grasp, and Fawcett caught it. The Shield Charm died.

“Right,” said Professor Iqbal, and patted Alice on the shoulder with one large hand. “Who can tell us what Fawcett did right?”

“Let Crouch trip herself up,” said a voice from the back of the room, and some people snickered. Alice turned a blotchy red, and looked at the floor.

“Didn’t lose his head,” said Peter in a squeaky voice, and when Professor Iqbal looked at him, he flushed awkwardly. “Even when his first spell missed.”

“Good,” said Professor Iqbal. “And Crouch, what did she do right?”

Silence again.

“She moved,” said Hermione, unable to contain herself anymore. “She didn’t stay a solid target. Fawcett just stood there, but Alice moved back and forth. It made her harder to hit.”

“Excellent,” said Professor Iqbal, and she thought, for a second, that he was hiding a smile. “And that leads in to—what did they do wrong?”

Sirius raised his hand. “Outside of staying still? Fawcett started with incarceration. You should try to put the other person down as quickly as possible.”

“Debatable, but I’ll take it—Lupin?”

Lupin lowered his hand, and said, “Alice panicked. Which is understandable, but you lose control of aim and focus if you let the fear get the best of you.”

“True,” said Professor Iqbal, “though I challenge you, Mr. Lupin, to find a single person who _doesn’t_ panic their first duel. What else?”

“She didn’t vary,” said Mary. “She only used _Stupefy_.”

“If you have a strength with a particular spell there’s no reason not to use it frequently, it’s just a matter of balance and making sure you don’t become predictable.” Professor Iqbal shrugged. “Now—Miss Granger against Mr. Fawcett, I believe.”

Something curdled in her stomach. The last time she’d used defensive spells, she’d been in the Department of Mysteries. Hermione drew a deep breath, and stepped into the ring, waiting for the Shield Charm to close up behind her.

It was better, she thought, waiting for Profesosr Iqbal, to use nonverbal spells in dueling—it meant no one could anticipate what you were casting—but she didn’t feel confident enough in nonverbal spellwork yet to try it. Fawcett looked bored again, and she wondered if this was just something all purebloods did when faced with Muggleborns—look bored until you forced them to pay attention. He twirled his wand absently between his fingers.

“Go,” said Professor Iqbal, and Hermione’s wand was up before Fawcett could move.

“ _Stupefy_.”

The jet of red light hit Fawcett so hard in the chest that it knocked him off his feet. He went flying, crashed hard into the Shield Charm, and slid to the floor in a heap, and Hermione lowered her wand without a word. Professor Iqbal dispelled the Shield, and offered a hand to Fawcett.

“C’mon, up you get—well done, Granger, very quick—”

Hermione nodded, and let her hair fall in front of her eyes. Through her bangs, she could see James Potter looking hard at the list of spells again, going through them. _Stupefy, Incarcerous, Expelliarmus, Petrificus Totalus, Impedimenta_ , _Tarantallegra_ , and a Shield Charm, those were their only options, and she took another deep breath and let it back out again. She could do this. She _would_.

“Now,” said Professor Iqbal again. “Thoughts?” 

Sirius put his hand up again, and said, “Granger’s fast.”

“Good. And anything she did wrong?”

The class all looked at each other, whispering amongst themselves.

“It was over too quick,” said someone. “I don’t think you can say someone did something _wrong_ when they win that fast.”

“Oh, you probably could,” said Professor Iqbal. “Now—Fawcett, you all right?”

Fawcett, who was stemming a bloody nose with his sleeve, said, “Fine,” very thickly, and gave Hermione a filthy look.

“What about Fawcett?”

“He underestimated her,” said Lily with deep satisfaction. “Didn’t try to block.”

“Which is why I deliberately included a Shield Charm in the list of spells you could use,” said Professor Iqbal. “When you’re not sure of your opponent’s strength or speed, you have to be ready to block. Right then—Potter, in you go.”

James Potter ruffled his hair with one hand, darting one quick look at Lily—she looked away from him—before bounding into the circle with a lazy grin. He looked pleased. A little nervous, maybe, but pleased, a little excitable. He bowed to her, wand out with a flourish, and then said, “I’ll be nice, Granger.”

Hermione, holding her wand tight in one hand, said, “I don’t need you to be _nice_.”

“Suit yourself,” said James.

Professor Iqbal raised the Shield, and said, “Go.”

“ _Stupefy_ ,” cried James, and Hermione danced away from it. She’d seen his wand-arm lift from a mile away, seen the tell-tale twist of his body as he’d leaned forward to cast—she switched her wand from her right hand to her left, darting—

“ _Tarantallegra_!”

“ _Protego_ ,” James said, but the Shield bloomed in the wrong place, on the wrong side—she’d cast with her left hand, and so the spell edged around the shield and hit him hard in the hip—his legs started an uncontrollable jig that had his glasses wobbling on his nose—his mouth curled a little in frustration—

“ _Impedimenta_!” he said, and Hermione cast a Shield Charm that bloomed like a brick wall, reflecting it back at him; it only just missed, over his shoulder—

“ _Petrificus Totalus_!” said Hermione firmly, and James’s body locked. He wobbled, back and forth, on one foot for a moment—she’d caught him mid-jig—and then fell back with a look of frozen frustration on his face, landing hard against the stone. Outside the circle, Sirius was howling with laughter. Lupin hid a smile behind one hand. Between them, Peter seemed torn, his face wavering between shock and not a little bit of amusement. He caught her looking at him, and blushed.

“Right,” said Professor Iqbal, his one good eye gleaming. “Who can tell me what Potter did wrong?”

It took seven duels in a row before Hermione finally slipped up and an Expelliarmus knocked her wand out of her hand, but by that time she’d defeated half the class. The boy who Disarmed her looked so shocked that he’d actually managed it that he didn’t think to block her incoming Impediment Jinx, so Professor Iqbal called it a draw and tapped another pair to demonstrate. Hermione spent the rest of the class sitting at her desk and watching the duelists, ignoring the grumpy looks from Fawcett and James Potter from across the room. By the time the bell rang, they’d turned to practicing Shield Charms, because _too few of you had that in your repertoire and it’s one of the most useful spells you have in your arsenal if you’re caught in a fight_. (Thank you, Professor Iqbal.)

Hermione was collecting her books to leave for Healing when Alice Crouch, still a little red with embarrassment, cleared her throat.

“Hey, um, Granger?”

Hermione blinked. “Can I help you?” she said, when Alice didn’t say anything else.

“Sorry! Sorry. Um—” Alice shifted her grip on her books. She was tapping her wand against her hip, and Hermione wondered if she realized she was sending silver sparks down to dance against the stone floor. “I just—um—where did you learn to duel like that?”

Hermione blinked again. “A friend taught me,” she said after a moment. _Do not sniffle, Hermione Jean. It’s not the moment._ Alice, oblivious, lit up.

“Here at Hogwarts?”

“No, back—back at my old school.”

Her expression wilted. Alice looked down, and turned crimson when she saw the shower of silver sparks, shoving her wand back into her pocket. “Damn.”

“Why?” said Hermione. “You did fine.”

“I lost,” said Alice, and Hermione rolled her eyes.

“You did, but that happens in training,” said Hermione. She tried to be kind. It wasn’t as if Alice had done a _poor_ job; she just had lost her nerve. “You cast a good Stunner. And you did well moving around. You just need to work on your aim.”

“I know, but—” Alice peeked at her, and then looked down at her books again. “I don’t know. I’m not—good at magic, not really. Not as good as other people in my family. And—I don’t know. I wanted to see if—if you knew someone who could help me, I s’pose.”

The bell was ringing. Hermione looked at the door—Lily was waiting for her at the front of the classroom, since they’d been planning on walking to Healing together—and then said, “I mean, I can help if you want.”

She only realized her mistake after it popped out her mouth. Before she could take it back, Alice’s eyes grew so wide Hermione could see the whites all the way around her pupils. She squeaked. “You would?”

“I need practice too,” said Hermione, and hoped that this wouldn’t blow up in her face. “Um—are you free after dinner tomorrow? We could find an empty classroom maybe.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, sure—I have to run to Healing, but—find me at dinner tomorrow, all right?”

“Yeah,” said Alice, wide-eyed still. “Yeah, okay,” and in that moment Hermione realized who she looked like. _Neville_ , she thought, and her heart twisted in her chest. _Oh, god, you look like Neville._

 _Frank and Alice Longbottom, tortured to insanity by Bellatrix Lestrange_ , and she’d _seen_ her, Alice Longbottom. In St. Mungo’s, over Christmas. Her hair had been longer, wispier; her round face had been hollow-cheeked and yellowish with lack of care, but it had been _Alice_. Her guts clenched. She was going to vomit.

“Granger?” said Alice, a bit nervously, and Hermione forced herself to smile. She probably looked sick.

“Nothing,” said Hermione. “Sorry. Cramps. I—have to go. See you later.”

“Bye,” said Alice, but Hermione had already darted out to the hall. Lily, standing by the doorway, gave her an odd look.

“Are you all right? You look a bit peaky.”

“Cramps,” said Hermione again, because it was an easy excuse. Lily’s face twisted in sympathy.

“I have some Menstrual Relief potion in the dormitory if you can hold on an hour.”

“Yeah,” said Hermione. “I—should be fine.”

Lily raised one russet-colored eyebrow. “So?” she said. “What was that about?”

 _Get hold of yourself, damn you, Hermione Jean._ She counted back from thirty to fifteen, and then said, “She wants to practice. Do you have a spare quill? Mine are at the bottom of my bag.”

“Dueling?” said Lily, with sudden interest. Deliberately, Hermione ignored it. “You mean practice dueling?”

“Yeah. Quill?”

Lily dug a Self-Inking Quill out of her bookbag and handed it over to Hermione, who wet it with the tip of her tongue and scrawled a note to herself on the inside of her arm to ask Professor McGonagall about spare classrooms.

“You’re teaching her?” Lily said, when Hermione handed the quill back.

“Not teaching. I’m not a teacher. I’m just practicing.”

“Can I come?” Lily asked, and Hermione blinked. She felt a little like an owl. 

“I mean—we’re practicing, we’re not starting a club or anything—”

“A club wouldn’t be a bad idea,” said Lily, and Hermione wondered if this was how Harry had felt when she’d suggested the DA. “But—you think Alice will mind if I come? I want to practice more often than once a week, when—with everything that’s going on.”

Hermione didn’t say anything for a while. They walked in silence towards the hospital wing, Hermione watching her feet as the ink dried on her forearm. Lily kept her books close to her chest, looking straight ahead. She’d worn her hair up high today, in a long ponytail; it made her look much older than fifteen.

 _I don’t want to start another DA._ That had been then. This was—she wasn’t up to that, not yet. She might not ever be up to it. But surely practicing once or twice a week with two people—only two—wouldn’t be so bad, would it? And she couldn’t say _no_ to Lily. It would be rude, and Lily was one of the only people who’d been really nice to her since she’d come to this new, strange Hogwarts. Lily and Mary. Surely it wouldn’t be so bad to work with Lily and Alice once or twice a week, keep her reflexes in shape?

 _You’re a fool if you think it’ll stay at two,_ said her logic.

_Let me pretend for ten minutes, will you?_

“Sure,” said Hermione, tiredly. “I’ll just—check with Alice at dinner tomorrow.”

Lily beamed at her.


	7. Letters Unsent, Letters Received

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to @runakvaed for both the chapter title and the excellent moodboards!! See Sirius below.

“I still can’t believe she beat me,” said James for the third time, throwing a bean bag back and forth between his hands.

Sirius, who was sprawled across one of the coziest armchairs in the Common Room and reading a Muggle motorcycle magazine, rolled his eyes. He’d leapt out of his uniform as soon as classes had ended for the day, and his Muggle clothes were artfully shabby, the way clothes that cost too much always were. Remus picked at the darning in his jeans and tried not to notice it too much. “Merlin’s balls, mate, she’s faster than you. Get over it.”

“I wonder if she’s a Seeker.”

“She’s not,” said Peter, rousing from his descent into revising hell. “Mary said she hates Quidditch.”

“So she’s a duelist,” said Sirius idly. He turned a page in his magazine. “They take that seriously over in France. Let it go, James, you’re driving us all mad.”

“Sorry,” said James, with a grin. Remus, curled half into the side of the couch, frowned at his essay and made a note in red ink in the margins. He could, he reasoned, clean the sentence up later tonight, if he remembered. If not, it wasn’t due until Monday anyway; he’d have time to fix it later. “Just—didn’t expect her to be that fast.”

“And that’s why you lost,” Remus said absently. “It’s not like you didn’t see how quick she was with Fawcett.”

James scowled at him, half playful, half exasperated. “Cheers, Moony.”

“Fabian said that she’s a dab hand at Transfiguration, too,” said Peter. Remus wasn’t entirely sure if it was because of his Animagus form, or because he was just good at pretending not to be present somewhere, but Peter _always_ heard rumors faster than any of the rest of them. He was very good at it, and sometimes, occasionally, it was even helpful. “And someone said she could cast a Patronus.”

Sirius actually looked away from his magazine at that. “Bollocks,” he said. “She’s our age.”

“Older,” said Peter. “Sixteen. But Mary said that Barnaby said that Otto Smith was waiting outside the staff room to talk to Vector and heard McGonagall mention it. She cast a Patronus. A _corporeal_ Patronus.”

Remus’s ears pricked.

“MacDonald’s giving you shite, Pete,” said Sirius, and went back to reading his magazine. “That’s beyond NEWT level. Absolutely no way. Besides, Mary’s not best pleased with any of us at the moment, you think she’d tell you the truth?”

“ _I’m_ not the one who enchanted all her quills to sing _God Save the Queen_ every time she touched them,” said Peter, a little smug.

“Which you shouldn’t have done,” said Remus, reprovingly. “Mary’s Northern Irish. _And_ she’s patriotic. Muggles and wizards are dying over there, it’s not all He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named—”

“I already said it wasn’t my best moment,” said Sirius, scowling at Remus. “ _And_ I apologized to her and you know it, so what’s up your bum, Moony? You’ve been snapping and snarling all day.”

“Stop,” said Remus, suddenly exhausted. “I’m fine, I’m just—tired.”

This wasn’t technically a lie. The full moon wasn’t for another two weeks, and usually around new moons he was the healthiest and most energetic he could be, but fifth year was already worse than he’d expected. He’d been awake until two in the morning wrapping up a Potions essay for class tomorrow, and trying (and failing) to Vanish more than a single thread in one of the tassels on his pillow. It also didn’t help that all three of the Gryffindor first years had managed to get into an awful fistfight in the middle of the Common Room the previous night. As prefects, it’d been his and Lily’s job to settle them before calling for McGonagall, and it’d taken the better part of an hour and multiple bruises to the ribs from Lucinda Nakama to get them to quit. He’d yet to settle back from the edge, even a full day later, and his head ached.

“Sorry, mate,” said Sirius after a moment. 

Remus shrugged at him, and went back to his essay.

“Anyway, Prongs.” Sirius cast his magazine aside, and pushed himself a little so he was hanging over the arm of the chair, blood rushing into his pale face. “It’s not like you’re not used to getting beaten by girls. Evans outstrips you any day of the week in everything but Transfiguration.”

James smiled, a little dumbly, but made a rude gesture at Sirius anyway. “Fuck off.”

“Awwww, Prongsie’s in _love_ ,” said Sirius, in a saccharine voice. Peter snorted into his stack of books. “Don’t be embarrassed, James, you should tell everyone, let _everybody_ know—like they don’t already—not like you wrote her poetry in second year or anything—”

James seized a pillow, and chucked it at him. Sirius waved it idly away with his wand, and it clipped a third year in the back of the head.

“Stop,” said Remus again, and Sirius rolled his eyes.

“Yes, _Mum_.”

“We could put itching powder in her drawer,” said James after a moment. “If we rope MacDonald into it again.”

“MacDonald likes her, don’t plan on it,” said Sirius. “We could turn her hair blue. That’s easy enough if we get the right potion into her cup in the morning.”

Remus pictured Granger with blue hair, and wondered if the sparks that burst from it sometimes would turn blue, too.

“Maybe do the Singing Hex again, that was fun—”

Peter, perking up, said, “What about the thing we did with the Slytherin dorms?”

“You just want to turn into a rat and get a look under her skirt,” said Sirius, but he grinned a little when Peter blushed. “You’re not the dog, mate, I am.”

“Maybe we can slip her a trick wand—”

Remus, deliberately idle, said, “I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong end of her Body-Bind Curse. You lot can try something, but I’m staying out of this one.”

“ _Boring_ ,” said Sirius, though James stopped suddenly and looked very intently at the floor. Probably remembering getting hexed, Remus thought. “I could have sworn you said that being a prefect wouldn’t mean you’d turn into a stick in the mud, Moony, what happened to you?”

“Until you can beat her in a duel, Sirius, I don’t think I want to wait to see what she comes up with for revenge once Lily tells her who did it.” Remus arched a brow. “She’s in sixth year classes. She could hex you nonverbally and you’d never see it coming.”

Sirius paused, and considered that. He didn’t blanch or anything, but he did look thoughtful, and that, generally, wasn’t the best or safest ways for Sirius to look. He bit at his thumbnail, and fell into deep consideration.

“Besides,” said Remus, and rolled up one scroll to start another section of his essay. “You lot wouldn’t manage it without me, and I have too much homework.”

“ _There_ he is,” said Sirius with a laugh, and rolled onto the floor on all fours. “Thought you were going soft for a minute there.”

Remus didn’t answer. The portrait hole had just opened up, and Lily was clambering through with all three of the Gryffindor first years, chatting with them in low tones. Granger and Mary were behind her, talking quietly. The cacophony of scents from outside the Common Room hit him in the face like a punch, but it was all familiar smells, mostly—Lily’s vanilla shampoo; Mary’s perfume, which was more pomegranate than peach no matter what she claimed; the oil paint from the Fat Lady; the Hogwarts greenhouses on the first years’ cloaks.

Granger overpowered all of it. It’d been the same in the bookshop, and the same in the train—she smelled _strong_ , but not in a bad way, heavy in his nose and against the back of his throat, lemon and lavender and sweet grass and ink from her quills. It’d drawn him into staring at her in Blotts and Flourishes, and into doing double the required number of compartment checks during the ride up to Hogwarts. It _tugged_ at him, the scent. Something curled and uncurled in his chest, like a living thing. Remus absently rubbed a hand over his heart, and forced his eyes away. He didn’t need James or Sirius asking questions, not yet. He couldn’t exactly explain it, even to himself. _She smells good_ was a weak answer even in his eyes; who knew what James and Sirius would make of it. Until he knew what was going on, there was no point in mentioning it—and he wasn’t about to let them cotton on to the situation.

“Evans!” James said, and the spell was broken. Lily snapped a look at him, her eyebrows jolting together like magnets. “Helping lost little ones?”

“Potter,” said Lily, and her lip curled up into something incredibly Snape-like. “Fall on your arse recently?”

James jerked and flushed—Remus could smell it, even if James was too dark-skinned for it to show—but his eyes still followed Lily all the way across the room to the dormitory stairs, where she sent the two boys, Mathias Llewellyn and Iain Strider, and the only girl, Lucinda Nakama, up to their separate beds. It was past curfew for first years, Remus realized. Past nine o’clock. He hadn’t noticed.

“Thanks,” he said to Lily when she looked back at him. “I had an essay—”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Lily breezily. “You took more than enough punches yesterday anyway. We have rounds tonight, though, don’t forget.”

“Was about to say,” said Remus, and Lily actually smiled at him—he heard James swear under his breath from by the fireplace—before heading up the stairs to the girls’ dorm herself. At the bottom of the stairs, Granger wavered for a moment.

“Have good rounds,” she said, looking a little sad.

Remus blinked, and refused to consider that his face felt much warmer than usual. “Cheers.”

Granger smiled, just a tiny one, before heading up the stairs after Lily. Thankfully, Sirius had not noticed; he was too busy consoling James. And Peter—Remus darted a little look at him—was focused completely on his schoolwork.

So much, he thought, for finishing the rest of this stupid essay.

.

.

.

_Dear Harry and Ron,_

_~~Things here haven’t~~ _ ~~~~

_~~I heard back from Magda and Marlene yesterday and~~ _

_~~Unspeakable Croaker still hasn’t~~ _

_~~Harry, your dad can be a real~~ _

She put the quill to her lips and stared at the page.

_Madam Pomfrey keeps asking after my health. She says she’s written to a handful of mind healers and she’s waiting to see if any of them are available to take me on, but I’m not sure I even want to do it. I’m not saying I won’t do it—I don’t want to risk losing or damaging my magic, even temporarily, and I’ve researched it in the library; Professor McGonagall was right about what grief can do—but I don’t know that it’ll do me much good when I can’t actually talk about what happened. It’s not as though any of them would believe me if I told them where I really came from. It’s hard enough trying to explain why I have no one to write to, no friends to correspond with. _

_I’ve come up with a solution, albeit a brutal one. I’m supposed to be in hiding. If I write to any of my friends from “Beauxbatons,” I’ll expose myself. It’s effective. I hate every second of it. If I tell the truth, they’d probably put me in some long-term care ward in St. Mungo’s and the last thing I want is to be back there again. Though I’m sure Professor Dumbledore would get me back out eventually, it’s not an experience I want to repeat._

_~~Perhaps I could write Unspeakable Croaker again and ask if I could tell a healer. I already need to write him again about the Orbis Sanguis, since he hasn’t replied. And I don’t want to tell Professor Dumbledore; I don’t want to risk~~ _

_Speaking of: Professor Dumbledore has been away from Hogwarts as often as he’s been here, and I’m sure it’s because of the war. I have a subscription to the Prophet and to some Muggle papers like the London Times, and it only seem to be getting worse every day. I can’t believe it’s only 1975 and things haven’t become truly terrible yet, at least, from how it went on our side of things. _

_I want to know what’s going on, but if I ask Professor Dumbledore about the Order, about the fight against Voldemort, he’ll probably ask me about timelines again. I know much better now how different this world is from ours, but there are still far too many variables to consider. The most important thing about time travel is that we’re not to meddle with how things were—and yes, I know this is dimensional, and not a time problem, but I don’t want to impact things any more than I already have. Sometimes I think about what Croaker said about dimensions and how every choice creates a new version of our worlds, some vastly similar, some vastly different, and it’s honestly quite frightening. Whatever choice I make could make a whole new world. And no, it’s not big-headed of me to think that way. I know things other people don’t know. I could change things. And it’s terrifying._

_You’ll both laugh at me, though. I hate not knowing what’s going on. We were very lucky in our way to be so involved in the Order. It drives me mad, not knowing what Voldemort is doing or where he is, even in broad terms. Of course, all we knew last year was that the Order was protecting something, until—well—everything—but it was still better than what I know here, because at least I knew something. I’m almost tempted to eavesdrop if I can, or ask Professor McGonagall outright—she was in the Order in our world, after all—or even just write Marlene and tell her what I know and demand answers even with the risks. I know, I know, who are you and what have you done with Hermione Granger—but losing everyone I love makes me less willing to keep my nose out of things and let the Order handle it. _

_School here is—different. I can’t put my finger on quite why, aside from the obvious—going to class with Sirius and your parents, Harry, is quite a strange thing, but after the initial shock it hasn’t been as difficult as I anticipated. Your father really can be quite ridiculous though, Harry. Sometimes I think he might be nicer than he acts—I caught him helping first years with their Transfiguration homework the other day, it was quite sweet of him—but then he goes back to being—well—as Fred-and-George-ish as possible, but with this—I don’t know how to describe it. This sense of entitlement that Fred and George never had. (Have. Had? Have. I refuse to believe that any of you are any less than safe, back home.) _

_Your mum is quite nice though, Harry. Sorry to say, Ron, that your parents graduated before I arrived here, so I can’t say much about them. I went to the library the other day and pulled out a bunch of old yearbooks, though, so I found them. Did you know your mother used to have long hair? Longer than Ginny’s even. I wonder why she cut it all off. And your dad had different glasses, more like Harry’s than the ones he wears back home. It was a little funny to see._

_I have met your uncles though, Ronald! Gideon and Fabian Prewett. Fabian is the sixth year prefect, and both of them are in my sixth year core classes. Gideon’s more ~~like Percy~~ scholarly and academic, and Fabian’s more like—well, Tonks, actually. They’re not quite as close as Fred and George are, though I suppose most twins aren’t really like Fred and George, are they? Fabian’s my partner in Transfiguration, and he’s very clever. They’ve both told me stories about their big sister and her husband already, and about their nephews Billy and Charlie (!!!) so I know some things are going according to what’s right. I’ve met Neville’s parents, too, Frank and Alice, but—I don’t know. I never heard much about Alice from Neville, and I’m afraid I never looked her up in any genealogical histories, but—was Alice a Crouch in our world? She’s Barty’s cousin, though she won’t talk about him; she says they’re not particularly close, especially as they’re in different Houses, and I can’t push more without it seeming odd. She’s very like Neville was in first year. Very shy, very nervous and worried she’s doing something wrong. If she was a Crouch back at home, then—that might explain why Neville went to his father’s family._

_(Which brings up the question of what keeps things happening the same way in different universes, but causes other things to change? People’s choices, I suppose. In a way I’m one great experiment—with knowledge of both sides I could, if I tried, probably trace things back to the dimensional diverting choice that cause things to happen differently. If I had the time.)_

_Anyway, I think the most startling thing about this place is how normal the teachers try to make everything seem. I mean, it’s not like home. Everyone knows there’s a war going on here. Everyone outside of Slytherin is trying to learn to protect themselves. But outside of DADA, the professors try to act as though everything is safe. I don’t think I blame them—if we were all terrified all the time nothing would get done, and you start to live with the knowledge that bad things will happen every day; it becomes more normal than you expect, very quickly—but sometimes I wish there was more acknowledgment. Like this morning at breakfast there was a note in the Prophet about a family that had been savaged to death by a pack of werewolves—Greyback, most likely. Lupin ran out of the room, and Sirius and your dad ~~and Pettigrew~~ went after him, Harry, but other than that there’s not much talk about when things go wrong. People keep dying. I feel like I should do something, but I don’t know what. _

_Missing you both very much. It was easier to think of things we could do when we were together._

_Much love, xoxoxo,_

_Hermione_

Hermione closed the book, and tapped it with her wand to activate the locking spells. Maybe it was silly writing to Harry and Ron as if they could read it, or keeping notes in letter form at all, but it made her feel—well, not _good_ , but at least a little bit better. If she pretended she could write to them, she didn’t feel quite so alone.

The Common Room was finally starting to fill with people. It was the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year, and though there were many, many more rules that Hermione was used to— _nobody goes anywhere alone, five teachers go along with Portkeys, everyone knows the evacuation points_ —but it was still Hogsmeade, and people had been burbling with excitement since the announcement had gone up the week before. Mo had even dropped by the Gryffindor table the morning before to ask if she was going, and Hermione hadn’t had the heart to tell her the truth. She’d been planning on staying in the library all day, away from everyone else—after all, she didn’t have the money for Honeydukes or Tomes and Scrolls, or their equivalents in this universe, at least—and it seemed a little silly to trek all the way down to Hogsmeade when she could just as easily read in the library instead.

(She knew Mo would be unimpressed with this argument, which was why she hadn’t even tried. She had a feeling that Mo would turn up to find her later that day, if she didn’t track her down in the Entrance Hall.)

Hermione tucked her notebook into her cloak pocket, alongside the Orbis. She could go down to breakfast, she reasoned. Eat something, even if she was a bit queasy. She couldn’t remember if she’d had dinner the night before, so she probably _should_ eat something, but she wasn’t particularly hungry. She was still debating whether it would be worth getting to her feet when the portrait hole swung open to let Mary MacDonald, James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew spill in, looking windswept and carrying brooms. Well, James and Sirius were carrying brooms. Peter was bundled up in a scarf too big for him, and holding a bag. The Orbis went warm in her pocket, but not burning—thankfully, it’d only done that the first time—almost like a little coal stowed away in her robes. She touched it, absently, and the heat died.

“Morning,” said James, extremely chipper. The hair stood up on the back of Hermione’s neck, sure as if a warning klaxon had gone off. It was the same voice of a Fred or George Weasley who had set up some complex prank, and managed to get away with it. “Brilliant day.”

“Absolutely spectacular,” said Sirius, raking a hand through his hair in a very James-like way. He grinned at Peter. Peter, in turn, grinned back, and then hauled the bag higher up his shoulder and darted up the stairs to the boys’ dorms. Hermione realized for the first time that Peter had the slightest gap between his two front teeth.

“It’s miserable outside,” said Mary, giving them frowning looks and rolling her eyes. She slung herself onto the couch beside Hermione and tipped sideways, sprawling halfway across Hermione’s knees. Hermione jumped so badly she almost threw her off her lap, and Mary gave her a filthy look. “Watch it, _Gran-jerr._ ”

“Warn me first, then,” said Hermione. Awkwardly, she patted at the top of Mary’s head, the way she would when she wasn’t sure if Crookshanks would bite. Mary let her eyes slide shut, and sighed a very loud sigh.

“Someday I’ll find a witch who truly appreciates my good looks and Quidditch prowess.”

“You could try Lacey Parkinson,” said Sirius, and threw himself into an armchair. “She always hung around my cousin like a bad smell when she was here. I’ll bet you anything she fancies witches.”

“Ugh,” said Mary, and wrinkled her nose without opening her eyes. “I’ll not take _Narcissa’s_ leavings, thank you _very_ much, Sirius. And even if she _weren’t_ , Lacey Parkinson is about as sweet as bubotuber pus.”

“Suit yourself,” said Sirius, and let his eyes close. “For all her faults, Cissa does have excellent taste in birds.”

Before Hermione could wrap her head around the concept of a Narcissa Malfoy who fancied girls— _Narcissa Malfoy_ —Mary shifted, and rolled onto her side. “The hell are you doing awake at this godforsaken hour, Hermione?”

“It’s nearly half-nine,” said Hermione, and Mary cracked an eye open.

“On a Saturday?”

“Ungodly,” said Sirius.

“I had to write letters,” said Hermione. “What about you?”

“Quidditch,” said Mary, and waved her hand idly in the air.

Sirius slid further into his chair, sprawling out. “Our _brilliant_ captain decided this morning was the best possible time for Quidditch practice, and who are we to deny the Bear?”

“Watch your mouth,” said Frank Longbottom, easing his way in after them. His curly hair was all mussed, and he looked pink and grouchy. “You could use some more training, Sirius. You keep lagging to the side to show off.”

“It’s not my fault that the Bludgers practically hit themselves,” said Sirius, and waved his hand absently at Frank. “Leave off, oh fearless leader, you have worn us all to but a shadow.”

Frank made a rude gesture at Sirius, checked the bulletin board (he yanked down two flyers for study groups that had been rescheduled), and then stomped back out of the Common Room. He stopped beside the portrait hole to say, “Granger, Pomfrey wants you.”

Hermione jumped. “Me?”

“Aye,” said Frank. “She’s in the Hospital Wing, I think. Hit the showers, idiots,” he added, clearly not to her, and then swung back out of the portrait hole as if he were sick of the sight of them. Considering he was captain of a Quidditch team that included both James Potter and Sirius Black, Hermione wasn’t entirely certain she could blame him. She’d always wondered how Oliver Wood had kept his temper with the Weasley Twins as his Beaters.

“Such a sweet-tempered, mild-mannered soul,” said James, who clearly had been hiding in the stairs up to the boys’ dorms. He crept out, pushing his glasses up his nose. “It’s no wonder he’s Head Boy.”

“He’d be sweeter if you didn’t needle him,” said Hermione sternly, and prodded at Mary until she let Hermione off the couch. She only realized her mistake when James gave her a considering look. She usually didn’t speak to him _or_ Sirius, but he’d sounded so much like _Harry_ in that moment that she’d just—

She shoved the thought away.

Sirius waggled his eyebrows. “Ooo, bad luck, Granger, he’s a bit more—shall we say—Wonderland inclined.”

“And you say our references don’t stick,” said Mary idly, and hooked her legs over the back of the couch.

“Still,” said Sirius, ignoring her. “Good taste though, the captain’s all right as far as it goes.”

Hermione scowled. “I have absolutely no interest in Frank Longbottom that way, thank you _very_ much, Black. Not that it’s any of _your_ business.”

“She bites when you get her to talk, doesn’t she, Pads?” said James, and perched on the arm of Sirius’s chair.

“Oh, go kiss a hippogriff, the pair of you,” she said. Her throat tightened. “It’s the best you can hope for when the two of you are so beastly.”

With that, Hermione marched out of the Common Room, refusing to pay attention to the roar of laughter behind her. She clipped a windswept Lupin in the shoulder on her way out, and ignored the wide-eyed look he gave her when she stalked away.

She stopped two floors down to hide behind a rattling suit of armor and catch her breath. She didn’t need to _cry_. For Merlin’s sake, she’d never been the weepy sort. She cried, yes, but that was because her feelings were sometimes too _much_ and there was no other outlet when she was feeling something really, truly unbearable, and—well—that’d been quite frequently lately, now that she thought about it. But she was _so sick of crying_. People kept giving her half-nervous looks like she thought she was going to burst into tears in the middle of Transfiguration, and feeling—vulnerable this way, it just—

She took a deep breath, and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. The hex mark on her chest was hurting. It’d started doing that a few weeks ago, whenever she was feeling anger or pain; it seemed to echo it in a sadistic mockery. She rubbed at it with one hand, trying not to flinch at the ache.

“I can do this,” she said aloud to the wall of the castle. “I can do this.”

“ _Ooooooooo, Frenchie’s talking to herself again_!” Peeves slid through the ceiling, and blew a raspberry at her. “ _Mad Frenchie, mad mad Frenchie, someone get the guillotine_ —”

“I’ll Silence you,” said Hermione. “Don’t think I won’t.” 

Peeves laughed at her. He also flew away. Hermione blew hair out of her eyes, and made for the Hospital Wing.

It wasn’t a long meeting. Madam Pomfrey wanted to give her letters that had turned up, introductory ones, from mind healers. “This one would be my suggestion,” she said, tapping the letter that lay on top with her wand. “But it’s up to you, dear. If you have any questions about their credentials, feel free to come to me. And if you’d like to meet any of them in person, you’re perfectly welcome to use my office. I’ve put it to Professor Dumbledore, and he’s agreed to let the Ministry open a private Floo to my fireplace to ensure you’ll be able to get proper care. Actually, it’s a bit of an experiment; if all goes well with you, we can hopefully open the fireplace to other students in Hogwarts who need work with mind healers. Not that you should make your decision based on that, of course.”

Hermione nodded numbly. Six letters, each in different hands and different inks, each sealed with a different color wax. The one on the bottom was the thickest, and it seemed to have many sheets of paper inside it; when she tucked them all into her pocket, she could feel paper crinkling. “Thank you, Madam Pomfrey.”

“Of course, dear,” said Madam Pomfrey. “How’s the ribs?”

“Fine. Bit sore still when I stay up for too long.”

“Yes, well, I thought that might happen. Hex marks that do things like— _that_ —tend to leave traces even long after they’re healed.” Madam Pomfrey gave her a trembling sort of look. “It’s a miracle you don’t feel worse, what with all the damage done to your bones and organs—no other physical symptoms?”

“My leg gets achy when it rains,” said Hermione, and Madam Pomfrey nodded.

“Happens even with Skele-Gro, I’m afraid. It was a nasty break, and magic can only do so much.” She waved a hand. “Off with you. Go get breakfast. And have fun with your friends today. Hogsmeade is a treat.”

Hermione rather thought she’d spend all day in the Three Broomsticks going over her letters, but she nodded, if only to please Madam Pomfrey. She’d been in and out of the hospital wing once a week since coming to Hogwarts—apparently, Madam Pomfrey didn’t trust St. Mungo’s Healers the way she did in Hermione’s world—and Pomfrey was, perhaps, one of the only people in Hogwarts who knew the full extent of what Hermione had been through. Not magically, of course, but—physically. It was nice, sometimes, to be fussed over.

She put her hand in her pocket, touching the letters, and left the hospital wing.

Mo was awake. She waved at Hermione when she came into the Great Hall, but didn’t stop chattering with her friends, which was, Hermione thought, probably for the best. Hermione collected some toast and as much bacon as she could reasonably carry, folded it all up in a napkin, transfigured one of the wooden goblets into a bottle with a stopper—she was fairly certain the elves wouldn’t mind so long as she transfigured it back and returned it—and filled it with coffee before making her way out into the morning air. It had rained the night before, and the wind was blowing ferociously; she had to cast a warming spell on her lumpy hand-me-down sweater to keep from shivering as she marched past Hagrid’s cabin, studiously keeping her eyes away from it, and along the path towards where Professor Kettleburn held Care of Magical Creatures classes.

The thestral herd tended to stay close to the edge of the woods, from what she could tell. She’d asked Professor Kettleburn about it at the end of their second Care of Magical Creatures class, wondering at the daring of the herd, but Professor Kettleburn had just laughed and said, _half the world can’t see them, what do they have to be afraid of?_ So a good seven of the fifteen-animal herd were milling around the edge of the lake when she sat on her usual log, setting aside her coffee and toast and collecting the bacon in her hands. Inside the barrier of the trees, the daggering wind was blunted; she only caught some gusts, and here it was more tolerable, even slightly warmer, which helped her hands de-frost. One of the little ones immediately raised its head—she still hadn’t worked out the knack of telling male thestrals from female when they were little—and sniffed at the air. Its mother raised her own head, and blinked at Hermione very slowly before coming forward to sniff at her hands. She could never lure more than one thestral at a time, but she was working on it.

“Luna was right,” Hermione said, when she offered a piece of bacon and the thestral took it delicately from her fingertips. “You’re really lovely things, after all.”

The thestral let out one of her haunting, almost reptilian cries, and flapped her large wings, blowing Hermione’s hair all into tangles. Hermione waited until she’d settled before giving over another piece of bacon, and scratching under her wingjoint with her free hand, careful not to let her feet anywhere near the thestral’s sharp hooves. The baby, curious as babies were, was sniffing at the pocket where she’d kept the bacon.

“That’s not for you,” Hermione said, sternly. “That’s a pocket.”

The baby sank its needle teeth into her cloak, and pulled.

“Let go.”

“I don’t think it understands English,” said a voice, and Hermione looked up, sharply. There was a boy, watching her. Younger than her, she thought. A third or fourth year, maybe. He was thin, but not quite sickly looking, with a long, aristocratic nose and silvery-grey eyes that were sharp at the edges. His hands were smattered with bruises, as if he’d been hitting something, and his scarf was layered green and silver. A Slytherin, she thought. Her palms began to sweat. What was it Marlene had said? _Don’t turn your back on any of them._ Hermione looked at him for a while, and then blinked, slowly.

“You can see them?”

“Half the school probably can,” said the boy. Something about his voice, his posture, was incredibly familiar. “You’re Morgana’s friend. The Mu—Muggleborn who’s staying with her family.”

Hermione processed that. _Reg_ , she thought. “Yes,” she said after a moment.

“She talks about you,” said the Slytherin boy, and sat down on the log where she’d left her coffee and toast. He yanked a little notebook out of his pocket, and bent his head over it, folding it cruelly inside-out so that the spine bent the wrong way. “A lot. It’s irritating.”

She wasn’t sure what to say to that. “What are you doing?’

“I draw them,” said the boy, sounding insulted. “I’m not about to change _my_ plan just because _you’re_ here, Mu—Granger.”

“Well, thanks very much,” said Hermione, sour. She looked down at the thestral foal, which had let go of her cloak and gone back to sniffing at her hands, before finally giving it a bit of bacon. “Who are you again?”

The Slytherin boy’s head snapped up, and suddenly she realized that the Orbis, in her pocket, had gone warm as a coal. The warming spell had kept her from noticing. “ _I_ ,” said the boy, “am Regulus Black.”

 _Regulus_. There’d been a door in Grimmauld Place marked with that name. _My brother, Regulus._ The name at the bottom of the family tree in Grimmauld, delicately wrought out of golden thread. _Regulus Black._ _Younger than me, and a much better son, as I was constantly reminded._ The boy who’d turned Death Eater and been murdered by Voldemort. “Sirius’s brother,” said Hermione, and Regulus’s eyebrows snapped together in barely-hidden disgust. He scoffed.

“I’m surprised he mentioned me. He doesn’t like remembering where he came from.”

Hermione didn’t have anything to say to that which would make any kind of sense, so she said nothing. She turned back to the mother thestral, and scratched at her wingjoints. She’d been scared of flying—was _still_ scared of flying—but the batlike wings of the thestrals were beautiful; delicate skin and long, arching bones that she ached to be able to investigate more closely. When she rubbed at the thestral’s bony ribcage, the mare let out a massive sigh, and shifted her wings so Hermione could get at her withers.

“Why can you see them?” Hermione asked after a moment. Regulus didn’t seem about to hex her—he had a pencil in his hand, not a wand—and he was—he was Mo’s friend, even if he’d almost called her _Mudblood_. If he were going to hex her, she reasoned, he’d have done it by now. Regulus didn’t lift his head.

“My grandmother died when I was four,” he said. “I was there with my mother.” He paused, and then said, “Why can you?”

Hermione didn’t look away from the thestral. It was easier to hide her expressions if she wasn’t looking at people. “My parents.”

“Right,” said Regulus. “In France.” Then, half-accusingly: “Why don’t you have an accent?”

“We spoke English at home.” 

“But you spent most of the year at Beauxbatons.”

“My family and I lived in Crawley until I was ten,” said Hermione. “Peebles before that. We were only in Lyon for—for about five years.”

Regulus settled, as if satisfied. She realized, in that moment, that this might be the longest she’d ever spoken to a Slytherin without a fight breaking out. Which made no sense, because if Sirius had been right, then Regulus had bought in to the Death Eater agenda wholly and completely. He’d _loved_ Lord Voldemort, had been his willing follower. Why he _wouldn’t_ hex her, a Muggleborn out here alone, made—little to no sense. Why he would be friends with _Morgana_ of all people—Mo, half-blood, the daughter of _Magda McKinnon_ , friend of Albus Dumbledore—that made even _less_ sense. Hermione gave the last of her bacon to the mare, who lipped gently at her palm after, before wiping her fingers clean on her cloak and gently scooting the baby out of the way with both hands. Regulus didn’t react when Hermione collected her coffee and toast, but when she sat down on the log, his head jerked up again; he looked at her with reproachful grey eyes, and half-turned his notebook away from her, like he was afraid she was going to cheat off him.

“I want to watch them,” said Hermione, and opened her coffee.

Regulus scoffed again, but his shoulders dropped away from his ears, slowly. They sat there for a while in a surprisingly comfortable silence, Hermione steadily gnawing on her toast even if it made her stomach hurt, Regulus turning his notebook about at different angles to capture—whatever it was he was trying to capture. His facial structure was just slightly different from Sirius’s, even if they both had the Black look of slightly androgynous beauty; his jaw was pointier, less blunt, and his nose was longer and turned up more at the end. Hermione watched him curiously until he caught her looking, and then went back to watching the thestrals. The mare and her foal had gone back to the herd, and the foal was trying to fly; it kept losing control of its half-grown wings and tumbling back to earth with a discordant squawk.

“Why are _you_ out here,” said Regulus after a while, and Hermione turned to blink at him. He didn’t look up from his sketching for more than a second or two, eyeing the mare and foal before turning back to his paper. “I didn’t think anyone else came to see them.”

Hermione finished the last of her toast, and shook the crumbs off the napkin into the damp earth. “Do I need a reason?”

“Most people think they’re creepy,” said Regulus. He turned to stare at her, grey eyes hard. “Or they just think they’re Dark.”

She stood, and wiped her hands on her cloak again. The baby thestral had left tiny, almost perfectly spaced holes on the fabric of her cloak, something that a _Reparo_ wouldn’t easily fix. She’d have to pull out a book on household spells and see if she could find one for darning. She didn’t trust her ability with a needle by hand. Hermione rubbed her hands together, trying to get her fingers to warm up. “They’re not Dark,” she said, after a moment. “Seeing death doesn’t make you Dark. Besides, a—friend of mine, back in France, she—she was always trying to get me to go see them. And I—can’t see her anymore, so I—thought—”

She closed her mouth. Why she would tell a _Slytherin_ this, even Sirius’s brother— _especially_ Sirius’s brother—eluded her. But Regulus’s suspicious eyebrows relaxed, after a while. He gave her a half-appraising, half-surprised look, before saying, “Well,” in a voice that clearly said he didn’t know precisely _what_ to say. He looked back at the thestrals.

“I like them,” he said, after a moment. He didn’t look at her. “They don’t pretend to be something other than they are.”

Hermione turned that over a few times in her mind, and then nodded. “Exactly.”

There was a moment of quiet, then, between them.

“I’m going back to the Great Hall,” she said, and hesitated. “D’you—want me to tell Mo you said hi?”

Regulus’s eyebrows snapped together again, and then relaxed. He ducked his head to stare at his sketchbook. “Tell her myself,” he said, in a slightly muffled voice, but Hermione nodded anyway. She didn’t ask about Sirius. Sirius had never mentioned his brother—not in the Common Room, not at meals, not anywhere—and she had a feeling, from how Regulus had reacted before, that if she brought up Sirius there’d be much the same kind of stony silence as before.

So instead, she just said, “Well, goodbye, then.”

Regulus looked at her, that same curious expression back on his face, and said, “Goodbye.”

He was still sitting on the log when she made it back up to the doors of the Entrance Hall, a tiny black speck at the very edge of the woods, head bent, drawing furiously. When Hermione drew the Orbis out of her pocket, the small, pointed arrow labeled _yr_ — _yr_ for yew, _yr_ for gates, _yr_ for death—pointed unwaveringly at his back.

.

.

.

The rain the night before had turned the path down to Hogsmeade into utter sludge, which promised a highly unpleasant return trip. It didn’t help, Hermione thought, that Filch inspected her signed permission slip so closely that she thought he might smudge the ink with the end of his nose. (She’d been under the impression that she didn’t _have_ a permission slip, but when she’d mentioned it to Professor McGonagall, Professor McGonagall had rolled her eyes and said that Magda had signed it weeks ago, so _stop worrying, girl._ ) Still, he accepted it, with grumbles— _what kind of fifth year has never been to Hogsmeade, plots and schemes, I’d say_ —and Hermione joined Lily, Mary, and a fourth girl from Ravenclaw named Amaryllis Finch, who Lily clearly knew from Charms Club. Mo clambered in after them, too, looking a little red-eyed and wan, and she sat next to Hermione in silence, staring out at the trees without a word as she fiddled with her Hufflepuff scarf. When Hermione asked what was wrong, Mo just shook her head, and said, “Doesn’t matter.”

Hogsmeade was just the same, in some ways. Madam Rosmerta still tended bar in the Three Broomsticks, though she looked much younger and her hair was blood-scarlet, not white-gold. She was flirting with a few seventh years as she passed over butterbeers and firewhiskeys (Hermione frowned), and when Hermione, Lily, Mary, Amaryllis, and Mo wandered in she gestured towards a table at the back before settling her substantial cleavage on the bartop to lean forward and chat with another customer. Lily’s nose wrinkled, just slightly, as she sat down.

“I wish sometimes someone else would tend bar,” said Lily. Mary, who was gazing a little starry-eyed at Rosmerta, jerked her head around.

“Bite your tongue, Lily Evans, she’s beautiful.”

“She’s an awful flirt.”

Hermione, at war with herself— _seventies prudery, or nineties feminism?_ —finally said, “I think she can do what she likes, just not with underage students.”

“I’ll get the butterbeers,” said Mary, and scooted off before Hermione could say anything else. Mo leaned forward, curiously.

“Do what with underage students?”

“Never you mind,” said Hermione sternly. Mo scowled.

“Oh. Sex. I _know_ what sex is, Hermione.” Then, a little proudly, Mo added: “Besides, Mum says sex isn’t a big deal. She started at fifteen.”

“Who started what at fifteen?” said Amaryllis, who’d been chatting with a Hufflepuff boy the next booth over.

Lily flushed crimson, and put her head on the table.

Lily and Mary soon vanished—Mary wanted to look in the Quidditch supply shop, which Hermione did not have the emotional energy for—followed shortly by Amaryllis, who had deserted them for the Hufflepuff boy she was, apparently, now snogging. Mo kept looking up at the door as if she were expecting someone, and, suddenly, Hermione remembered.

Suddenly, she remembered.

“Mo,” said Hermione quietly, as the door swung open and a trio of Ravenclaw seventh years came swanning into the pub. “I met your friend Reg yesterday.”

Mo’s head whipped around. Her honey-colored eyes went popping wide, and her lips parted. She said, “What?”

“Reg,” said Hermione. “I went out to see the thestrals yesterday. We talked a little bit.”

Mo fidgeted. She was very thirteen in that moment, Hermione thought. All awkward elbows and nerves. Her cornrow braids were frizzing a little at the bases. “Oh.”

Mo didn’t say anything else. Hermione put her letters on the table, and dropped her voice. stepped over a puddle. “Mo—”

“Don’t tell Mum,” said Mo, words tumbling over each other in a whisper. “Don’t tell Mum he’s Regulus Black, or—or Marlene. They’ll think he’s horrible and evil and he’s _not_ , I promise he’s not, he’s just—he’s my friend and I don’t want them to be scared he’s going to hurt me because he wouldn’t, he’s my _best_ friend—”

“I haven’t said anything to them,” said Hermione. And she hadn’t. She’d written and scrapped half a dozen letters to Magda, feeling like a snitch. Regulus hadn’t seemed _dangerous_ to her, exactly. Sirius in her world had described him as a loyal Voldemort supporter, even as a child. Would that Regulus have befriended a halfblood like Mo? Particularly the daughter of a blood traitor? She’d lain awake thinking about it for hours the night before, and she couldn’t come up with a single likely reason Regulus would be manipulating Mo into _anything_. They were thirteen, for goodness sake. What could any pureblood fanatic get from a thirteen-year-old girl?

And Regulus had died when Voldemort had asked him to do something. He’d tried to get out, and been killed. He was Sirius’s brother, and he’d been murdered by Voldemort in the end. She couldn’t be sure why, and would never know, now, but—maybe he wasn’t _all_ bad.

“Oh,” said Mo. She fell quiet for a moment. “He won’t hurt me, Hermione.”

Hermione hesitated. “Mo, you know who his family is. They’re—they wouldn’t be kind to you.”

“He’s not his family,” said Mo fiercely. “We’ve been friends since I was a first year. He—we’re _friends_ , Hermione.”

“All right, all right.” Hermione held up both hands. She said, “You just—hear things about pureblooded Slytherins, is all.”

“Yeah,” said Mo. “A load of _rot_. I’m a _Hufflepuff_ , Hermione. People hate us or think we’re stupid—”

“Mo—” 

“And they think the Slytherins are all—all blood purists and racists, but Reg isn’t like that.” She turned her freckled face up to Hermione then, anxiety in the lines around her mouth. “He’d never hurt me. He _wouldn’t_ , Hermione.”

Hermione thought of the slim boy drawing thestrals with bruised knuckles, catching himself every third word. Prickly and awkward, she’d thought. But he could have hexed her and he didn’t. And—and he’d never hurt Mo.

“Promise me if something happens you’ll tell me,” said Hermione, and Mo lit up like a candle.

“Hermione you’re the best you’re the best you’re the _best_ —”

“If something happens to you I’m going to tell your mother—”

“Nothing will happen.” She beamed. “It’ll be fine. It’ll be _fine_. And—and you’ll like him, you’ll see. You just have to talk to him.”

“Fat chance,” said Hermione. “I’m a Gryffindor. He’ll go out of his way to stay far away from me.”

“You never know,” said Mo, twinkling. “You both read a lot of newspapers.”

“Newspapers are perfectly acceptable ways to get the news,” said Hermione, and sniffed. “When they’re not being manipulated by the government, anyway.”

Mo rolled her eyes, and returned to her butterbeer, so Hermione applied herself to her letters, from the bottom to the top. The first was from a man named Marcus Snyde, who had stuffed his envelope so full of recommendations that she couldn’t help but wonder if he was trying to hide something. She set that one aside. The others were all mostly the same—healers, some affiliated with St. Mungo’s, some not, with various experiences and recommendations. The one that Madam Pomfrey had recommended was the last, and she opened it slowly and carefully so as to avoid tearing the return address.

_Dear Miss Granger,_

_My name is Ted Tonks—_

Hermione slopped her butterbeer over onto the table.

“Oh, _Hermione_ ,” said Mo, and leapt out of her chair. Hermione Vanished it, apologizing over and over, shoving her letters back into her pocket. “What _is_ all that lot anyway, you’ve been jiggling your leg the whole time you’ve been looking at them—”

“Nothing,” said Hermione, and then let out a breath. “Mind healers. Nothing. It’s fine.”

Mo’s eyebrows rose, slowly. She looked, in that moment, very like her mother. “I thought you were seeing a mind healer? At St. Mungo’s?”

Hermione could practically _see_ Amaryllis’s ears prick in the next booth. She stood up with a clatter, and said, in a somewhat loud, definitely crazed voice: “I’m going to go to the bookstore. I—I want to look at—at different copies of schoolbooks, Marlene’s scribbled all over the sixth year Charms books—”

Mo gave her a look that said, clearly, she did not believe Hermione at all, but she sighed onto her feet, and then said, “So long as we stop at the Quidditch supply after, if you’re going to drag me to a bookstore.”

It had just begun to drizzle when they made their way out of the Three Broomsticks and down the path towards Tomes and Scrolls. The bookshop was fairly quiet—actually, all of Hogsmeade was. The neighborhood was full of barred doors and shuttered windows. When she looked at the outer rim of the village, she could see a rippling barrier, raised high. Warding spells.

Once they were in the shop, though, it was easier; Mo settled at the front to keep people watching out the window, well within Hermione’s line of sight from any point among the shelves, and Hermione found a space to sit down. 

_Tonks._ _Ted Tonks._ Wasn’t he Tonks’s father? _My dad’s a Healer_ , Tonks had said, when Ginny had scalded herself on a trap in Grimmauld Place and Tonks had offered to fix it. _Best one I know. He taught me a bunch of things._ Her hands, she realized, were shaking—she touched her fingers to the letters again, and held her breath until she could feel her heartbeat throughout her whole body.

“Thirty,” she said, under her breath. “Twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven—”

She had to count three times—a full ninety—before she steadied out enough to be able to look at the letter again. Hermione unfolded the parchment with trembling fingers, and smoothed it out.

_Dear Miss Granger,_

_My name is Ted Tonks. Madam Pomfrey wrote to me recently indicating that you are currently seeking the services of a mind healer, as your circumstances while a student at Hogwarts make it difficult to correspond with your usual physician._

_While I do say I can understand her point—sometimes it can be difficult, even via Floo, to access the healing that you need—I want to tell you as soon as possible that beyond that, she has made nothing of your case known to me. I do not know precisely why you are seeking a mind healer, nor, at this point, is it any of my business. If you choose not to seek my services, I will not inquire as to your case with anyone. Confidentiality is the highest priority amongst Healers, especially those who work with the mind; it is not something that I take lightly._

_That being said, Madam Pomfrey did indicate to me that she thought you and I may find common ground in our blood status—that is, that as two Muggleborns, it may be easier for us to speak. I don’t know if that’s true—it’s not always the case that it’s easiest to speak to those we are like—but Poppy Pomfrey is a gifted mediwitch, with (I’m sure you’ll agree) a somewhat uncanny sense to know how to hit precisely what aches. I do not believe she would have sought me out if she did not think it might be helpful._

_At which point, I suppose it would be useful to explain what it is that I do—I am a Healer (I started in physical and beast-based ailments) that eventually moved to the healing of the mind due to a sense of what I call passion and what my wife calls innate stubbornness. The Muggle world has a much different definition of what “mental healing” is than the wizarding one—and I felt, for reasons that should be clear due to the above, that if one were to lay the two alongside one another and pick and choose the best pieces from each, one might get a working whole. Of course, it’s not quite worked out like that—magic has a tendency to bugger it up when it comes to scientific advancement—but at this point I have continued the study anyway. Primarily my patients are Aurors and hitwizards, those who have experienced trauma and loss in ways that most of the wizarding world does not. It’s why, at first, I was surprised that Poppy wrote to me regarding you—though of course, considering what we face, I don’t think I should have been._

_I am perfectly willing to meet at your convenience so you and I might speak and see if we rub along all right. If you choose to remain with your current healer, or find it more convenient to speak with someone else, I would be pleased to hear from you about it, just to settle my own mind._

_All that is to say that it is your choice, Miss Granger. I would not recommend choosing any Healer, especially not a mind healer, without contacting and interacting with them a few times, but I also do not think that Madam Pomfrey would have reached out were you not capable of doing that yourself. So, I leave you with this—a fairly rambling letter, and a hope that you are well._

_Regards,_

_Ted Tonks_

Hermione looked at the letter for a long time. Then, very, very gently, she folded it up, and slipped it back into the envelope.

She’d never met Ted Tonks in her world, so it wasn’t as if seeing him would upset her with old memories. And the wizarding world in Britain wasn’t _that_ large—surely she’d run into someone else associated with the Order eventually. She already had, in fact—Dorcas Meadowes, Professor McGonagall, _Marlene_. And—she swallowed—Madam Pomfrey had recommended him. He’d clearly been an excellent Healer, and a good and brave man if he’d raised Tonks. Besides, she and Healer Adegbuyi simply weren’t getting along. Perhaps they would have in different circumstances, if she’d had different problems, but the most they’d ever talked about their feelings was when Hermione had complained about Mo’s early broom flights, and Healer Adegbuyi had told her he’d had a brother who’d done something similar but with a flying carpet. It wasn’t the sort of thing one could truly base a doctor-patient relationship on, especially when the doctor was a mind healer.

 _You’ll still be in the same place even if you switch healers,_ said the nasty little voice in her mind. _It’s not like you can tell him the truth. You’re some Unspeakable’s secret, you can’t tell anyone the truth. You’re alone here, and you should know better than to try to make it different._

The scuff of a trainer made her look up. Lupin— _of course it was bloody Lupin_ , she thought, uncharitably, but then felt bad, because it wasn’t like he could _help_ being the one unlucky enough to be around when she was upset, and really, she should have expected to find him in a bookstore, anyway, they’d always chatted about books when they’d talked in her world—had stopped suddenly at the end of the aisle, and looked as though he’d rather be anywhere but there. After a moment, though, he swallowed, and said, “Everything all right?”

Hermione choked out a laugh, and wiped her damp cheeks. “Yeah. Just—it’s stupid.”

Lupin crept closer, and crouched on the floor of the shop next to her. He was carrying five books, and all of them—she blinked—were about werewolves. When he noticed her looking, he held them closer to his chest, to hide the titles. “I room with James and Sirius,” he said. “I’m good with stupid things.”

“That’s mean,” said Hermione, but her lips quivered up into a smile. “They’re not stupid, they’re just—” She groped for a word. “Idiots.”

Lupin nodded, looking picturesquely innocent. “You should tell them that.”

“God, no.” She wiped her face again, and let out a gusting breath. “I’m a mess. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, it’s fine. Believe it or not, you’re not the first person I’ve found crying in public this week.” He sighed. “The Gryffindor first years are—they’re all Muggleborn, and nobody told them about the war. They’ve been—very frightened.”

She could only imagine. The first years she’d dealt with last year had had the benefit of a _Daily Prophet_ following a Ministry byline of _Voldemort is dead, all is well_. She couldn’t possibly try to place herself in the shoes of an eleven-year-old Muggleborn who’d just been told that at least a quarter of the school probably wanted her dead, and that Muggles like their parents were being murdered almost weekly by Death Eaters. “Poor little things.”

“Yeah.” Lupin rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, and then sat down next to her with a thump. He looked at her only afterwards, frozen. “D’you mind—?”

“No, it’s fine.” Honestly, she’d sat down at random in the shop. When she looked at the shelves, she realized they were in the Magical Creatures section. Hermione took down a book called _Waging War With Wyverns_ , and opened it to a random page. Books, she reasoned, would help her shakiness. Maybe in a bit she could find something on the Orbis Sanguis. “Sit as long as you like.”

Lupin let out a breath, as if he’d been holding one, and settled in. They sat next to each other in silence, Lupin reviewing his books on werewolves and occasionally standing to pull another from the shelf, Hermione finally getting sick of _Waging War With Wyverns_ and picking up a copy of _Crescent Moon Rising: My Year With The Centaur Herds of Northern Romania_ by Uldred Skagmire.

“They’re all right, really,” said Lupin suddenly, not looking at her. Hermione stopped with the book half-open on her lap. “James and Sirius. They’re—well. They’re just idiots, really, they go too far sometimes, but—they’re good blokes. Honestly. They mean well.”

Hermione looked at him for a long time. Slowly, she looked down at the table of contents in _Crescent Moon Rising_. “Oh.”

“They felt bad,” said Lupin. “For upsetting you this morning.”

“If you’re just trying to apologize for them—”

“They did,” he said. “Truly. They’re—they try to make people laugh. Just—sometimes they try too hard, is all. They don’t always know when to stop.”

“Oh,” said Hermione again. She turned the page of her book without reading it.

“I know they take a bit of getting used to,” said Lupin, with a sort of desperate determination she’d never seen in him before. “James especially, he—well, he’s an awkward prat, really, but—they really didn’t mean to upset you.”

Hermione’s throat burned. She swallowed— _thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight_ —and then said, “Oh,” for the third time, feeling stupid and repetitive and weak for being so teary.

“Sorry,” Lupin said. “This is coming out wrong. What I meant to say is—I told them to let you be for now. And just—even when they’re being idiots, they don’t mean to be cruel. They just—don’t always know how to talk to people.”

Hermione looked at him. Lupin had his hand resting on the top of his copy of _Werewolves: The Myth, the Magic, and the Making_ , finger tapping an anxious tattoo against the author’s name. He caught her eye, and then looked away again, shaggy hair falling forward to hide his expression. Hermione brushed her hair back out of her face, wishing she had a pencil—it was too humid to tie her hair back, but it kept falling into her line of vision—and then said, “Do they usually send you to smooth everything over, or are you just trying to be nice to me?”

Lupin flushed seashell pink, and coughed. He said, “They don’t—actually know I’m doing it, to be honest.”

Hermione bit her lip, and looked at her knees.

“They remind me of people I used to know,” she said, after a moment of awkward silence. Lupin looked at her through his bangs, his grey-green eyes fixing on hers. “People—people who meant a lot to me. They—they’re gone. It’s—hard for me, to see them. Sometimes.”

Lupin was quiet for a long time. Then, softly, he said, “I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t tell anyone,” said Hermione briskly, and put _Crescent Moon Rising_ back on the shelf. “You can’t know if I don’t say anything, you know. Unless you’re a Legilimens?”

“Me? No. Sirius knows some Occlumency, but—no.” Lupin watched her take down another book at random. “What are you even looking for?”

“I don’t know.” Hermione sighed. “It’s not like I can buy anything. I just—” she waved her hand at the shop. “They—help.”

The corner of his mouth quirked. Lupin reached up, higher than she could, and took down another book.

“Why are you looking at books on werewolves?” said Hermione, and Lupin froze, for just a moment. He cleared his throat.

“Extra credit for Iqbal,” he said, smoothly. “I want to get a Defensive mastery if I can, focusing in understanding and combating magical creatures. If I can specialize in one or another before I even graduate, it’s a better bet I can get to supervise a broader study.”

This was, Hermione thought, both very clever from a career standpoint, and a very quick lie. Hermione nodded. “I see.”

He watched her pick through the books for a while, and then said, “If you’re looking for something to read, you could try that.”

The book he was pointing to was small, thick, and dark, with an unassuming, tattered dust cover that had no design. Hermione turned it over in her hands—it was just called _The City_ , no author listed—before opening it. “What’s it about?”

“Goblins.”

“That’s unhelpful,” she said, frowning at him.

“The relationship between goblins and wizards,” he said. His eyes were dancing a little. “From their perspective, not ours. From what I can tell, the author was exiled from the city _and_ from Gringotts for publishing this, and most of the copies were taken out of circulation on the request of the Goblin Council. Tomes and Scrolls has had this one for ages. No one buys it ‘cause no one wants to see them walk out of the shop with a banned book.”

Hermione looked at the book again. The Orbis Sangui in the world had been goblin crafted, hadn’t they? And they’d been destroyed after the most recent goblin rebellion in this universe. So perhaps—she swallows. Ten Galleons was much too much for her to spend on a book—she didn’t have that kind of money anymore—but—maybe, if she made a deal with the shopkeeper, or got permission to look at the restricted section and find another copy—her mind spun. “Oh.”

“Is it true you’re practicing dueling with Alice Crouch?” said Lupin after a moment.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Lily.” Of course, Hermione thought. Lily and Lupin had patrols together half the week. Lupin smoothed his hands over the cover of his book. “And Alice, actually, she and I are partners in Charms—she’s—it’s good that you’re helping her. She’s not very confident, her family is—anyway. I think it’s helping her. She talks more.”

Hermione fluffed her hair. “I—I hope so. I mean, I’m not a great teacher, but—”

“Don’t tell her that,” said Lupin, smiling a little, “she won’t hear a word against you.” He hesitated. “Actually I was—hoping it’d be all right if I joined? I won’t be able to make it, sometimes—prefects have meetings most Friday nights—but if there’s space…?”

 _You don’t need me_ , she thought, looking at him. _You become one of the best duelists I’ve ever seen._ But that was a different life, and Lupin was looking at her so hopefully—she’d _never_ seen him hopeful, she realized; her heart ached a little—that she couldn’t help the smile prickling at her lips.

“Oh, all right,” she said. “That’ll round us out to four.”

“Brilliant,” said Lupin, and grinned back at her. It was much, much wider than anything she’d ever seen on his face, made his scars disappear, and the ache around her heart deepened. _You should be happy_ , she thought, looking at him. _You lost so much when I knew you and you should have had the right to be happy_. But that world was not her world now, this one was, and she had to come to peace with that. Slowly but surely, she had to convince herself of it. 

Lupin, humming something under his breath that sounded like the Beatles, turned back to his own books. He didn’t say anything else, just sat in companionable silence with his treatises on werewolves. Hermione darted a few looks at him at first, curious ones, but after she started reading _The City_ , she forgot to pay attention to him.

It was easy, after a while, to forget where she was at all.


	8. Breaching The Wards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: TORTURE. ASSAULT. DISCUSSION OF THE MURDER IN CHAPTER 5, WITH SOME REENACTMENT/MENTION OF CHILD SEXUAL ASSAULT AND RAPE. SOME NEAR DEADNAMING OF A TRANS CHARACTER. (No explicit deadnaming, just....the Look you get with certain government issued IDs.) Going over more of Hermione's stress. Snape swears a lot. Sirius and James show their nasty sides. Mentions of sexual harassment typical of the 70s. Also, Amelia says that nasty C-word.

Amelia smoothed her robes out again, and pretended she wasn’t holding her breath.

The shock of being invited to the bi-monthly status meeting of the DMLE still hadn’t quite worn off. In a way, it made sense—she and Moody had been the primary leads on investigating a few of the most recent killings, and it was logical to get the people who had the most knowledge of the situation into the room to be able to answer any kind of questions the heads of various departments might have—but until Moody had dropped the scroll on her desk she’d just been expecting them to invite _him_. He was one of the most senior Aurors in the Auror Office, _and_ had a decade’s more experience than she did, for all he was only in his thirties.

When she’d pointed this out to him, he’d been more disturbed she knew how old he was than anything else. Reminding him that everyone’s birthdate was available via personnel files and that that kind of simple maths wasn’t beyond her didn’t help matters. They’d still been bickering about it until the clock had bonged half-six, and they’d had to make their way towards the elevators.

“You look like you just swallowed goblin shite,” said Moody, and Amelia wrinkled her nose at him. “Don’t strangle yourself.”

“Fuck off,” said Amelia, fighting the urge to put her head between her knees. “Just because you’re used to these—”

“All that happens is that they yell at each other,” Moody grunted, and thumped the floor with his staff. “Useless bleaters. No clue how the war’s really going. Keep insisting on calling it a _rebellion_. Like that helps anything when dementors’re going around Kissing whole villages—”

“ _Shh_ ,” said Amelia, and looked down the hall. One of the Minister’s undersecretaries had just come around the corner. “ _Morgana’s cunt_ , Moody, don’t say that outside of the office—”

“Keeping it quiet is dragonshite, Bones—”

“You _know_ I agree, but you could be cited for rumor-mongering without the proper permission, and the last thing we need is _you_ getting pulled to do desk duty, so _button it up_!”

Moody gave her a ferocious look, magical eye rolling in his head like she’d hexed the thing. It was making her dizzy. Finally, though, he said, “Jumped up little pixie,” and Amelia relaxed. If he’d resorted to name-calling, that meant he had no other arguments. She’d won, and he’d keep his mouth shut, for now. Amelia sat down on the bench outside Room 119, and leaned against the back of it.

“Stop acting like you’ve a thorn in your paw, Alastor. Paper-pushers are paper-pushers. Without them nothing would get done.”

“Nothing gets done _with_ them.”

“Which is why we pretend they don’t exist half the time,” she said pointedly. His eye slowed in its wild whirling. “Remind me again why I’m still working with you?”

“Because Minchum won’t let me work alone,” Moody said. “And you’re stuck with it. Get up.”

Amelia shot to her feet. In the same moment, the door to Room 119 opened. A Hitwizard with a scar on his jaw and his wand in his hand stood on the threshold. Behind him stood Malachi Nott, his pencil-thin mustache looking rather like a smear of ink on his upper lip, sneering a little at the sight of them.

“Name,” the Hitwizard said to Moody.

“Alastor Moody, Auror Department. Investigative Division.”

“Wand.”

Moody bared his teeth. “I’m not—”

“Alastor,” said Amelia, and Moody snarled but handed over his wand. The Hitwizard cast a spell over it—the wand glowed green—and then he gave it back to Moody without a word. He turned to Amelia, instead.

“Name?”

“Amelia Bones,” she said, and handed over her wand before she was asked. The Hitwizard looked down at her paperwork, and hesitated.

“You said Amelia Bones?”

Amelia bit the inside of her cheek. Woodenly, she said, “The paperwork’s being updated. My wand will check out.”

He examined the parchment, and then peered at her face, still frowning.

“For fuck’s sake,” said Moody, and the Hitwizard jumped. “She’s who she says she fucking is. Let us pass.”

“Right,” said the Hitwizard, clearly not wanting to get on the wrong side of Moody. Once her wand glowed green, the Hitwizard stepped out of the way, and handed it back to her.

“Down the hall,” he said. “Nott’ll take you.”

“Right,” said Moody, and shoved his way past Nott to stomp down the hall. Amelia did not apologize. She didn’t like Nott, and he didn’t like her; it was the sort of inter-office nonsense that she didn’t usually have time for, but Nott had a tendency to grab women in the supply closets around the Investigation Department, and the only reason he hadn’t tried it with her was that she’d threatened to turn his bones to sand if he came anywhere near her. She’d also reported him to his supervisor, but Flo Ogden had never been particularly bright, and he was still working as the Administrative Assistant to Investigations.

 _Wizards_ , she thought, disgusted, and caught up with Moody.

“In here,” said Nott, and stopped by an unmarked black door. His lip curled again. “You will take an Oath of Secrecy before the meeting begins. No one who attends is exempt.”

“We know the drill,” Moody growled.

“Obviously not, or you would have known that a wand check at the door is typical.” Nott gestured, and the door opened with a smooth _click_.

He stalked away before either of them could reply.

“Insufferable little prick,” said Moody. He eyed Amelia. “Ready?”

Amelia shrugged. True to form, Moody did not wait; he pushed open the door, and stumped on through. 

The conference room was long and dark, filled almost end to end with a table that could have seated forty people. As it was, there were only a handful at the far end, and they all looked up when the door swung open. Eugenia Jenkins, Minister for Magic, greyer and more tired than Amelia had ever seen, was sitting at the head of the table. On her left, Ignatia Flack, head of the DMLE, was reading a handful of files that had been hexed; the pages appeared black when Amelia tried to glance at them, and made spots burst in front of her vision. Next to Flack, Barty Crouch had his fingers steepled, looking up and down the table as if hunting. On Jenkins’ right sat Harold Minchum, head of the Auror Department and looking particularly constipated due to the fact that he was sitting next to Octavius Rowle, head of the Hitwizard Department. The two did _not_ get along, and never had, apparently, even in school; Rowle, the Ravenclaw, had despised Minchum, the Slytherin, and vice versa. Along the table, other chairs had been filled, from every department in the DMLE; even the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office had turned up, which shouldn’t have surprised her considering how Muggle-baiting had been going nowadays, but the head of the office, a Muggleborn wizard named Hopkirk, was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a replacement—a young, thin, redheaded man with glasses—was resting in his chair, perched on the very edge. Amelia thought he was on the verge of falling out of his seat. There were two empty chairs on the right-hand side of the Wizengamot’s representative, a burly-looking witch that Amelia did not know. Neither Amelia nor Moody sat down; they stood at their chairs instead, and Amelia, at least, was highly aware of how exposed they were in this room. It was too dark, and there were too many spaces for people to hide.

“There you are,” said Minchum, looking irritable. “Can we get started now?”

This to Flack, who continued studying her files for a moment or two longer before looking up. “Minister?”

Jenkins waved one hand.

“All rise,” said Flack, and stood, drawing her wand with her left hand and raising it above her head. The tip began to glow a soft, mellow green. “As witnessed by all standing present here, I swear an oath to hold the contents of this meeting secret until otherwise instructed by our Minister for Magic, Eugenia Angela Jenkins.”

Flack sat down, and returned to her folders. Crouch stood up then, and swore his own Oath. It was only once everyone in the room had sworn an Oath, and Minister Jenkins acknowledged it with another exhausted wave of her hand, that Flack put her reading glasses away

“We’ll call this meeting to order, then,” said Flack, and closed her jinxed folders with a surprisingly loud _snap_. “As per our last meeting—don’t look at me like that, Rowle, I didn’t choose the seating arrangements, take it up with Nott if you’ve a problem—we’ll hear reports from each department before—”

“Forgive me, Ignatia,” said Minchum, “but I’ve two Aurors here that I’d like to present their findings in the recent killings in—”

“We’ll get to that, Harold,” said Flack, scowling, “but considering some of the people who were _killed_ were the wife and three children of a Misuse of Muggle Artifacts employee, I thought it would be better to _listen to reports first_.”

Minchum’s mouth snapped shut, and he leaned back in his chair. Amelia, who’d never seen Minchum told so pointedly to _be quiet_ , ducked her head to hide a tiny smile.

“Thank you,” said the red-haired man. “Damian’s—on sick leave, and Hopkirk had to go on a raid. I’m filling in for him until he gets back.”

“Name?” said Flack briskly.

“Arthur Weasley,” said the man, and pushed his glasses up his nose.

Flack looked at him for a moment. “You’re aware that everything said in this room is confidential and that if you break that confidentiality clause you’ll be Obliviated?”

Weasley stood up straighter. His lips pressed thin. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Excellent.” Flack raised one impeccably crafted eyebrow. “Other than Boot’s leave of absence, what else do you have to report, Weasley?”

Weasley fidgeted for a second or two. “Raids,” he said, clearly terrified but powering through it. “More than the department can handle. There were three of us before Boot’s family was killed, and now there’s only me and Hopkirk, and the Knights of Walpurgis—”

“Death Eaters,” said Moody. “Not the Knights of Walpurgis anymore.”

Weasley jumped, but nodded. “ _Death Eaters_ seem to think of Muggle-baiting as a sport. We’ve been working in conjunction with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures after a bad attack in Ottery St. Catchpole—” he paused, just for a moment. “There was an incident with a porcelain figurine that turned into a hippogriff when touched. It wasn’t the worst thing that’s happened, but there are more reports coming in every hour and we can’t handle everything with only two people in the department.”

“Right.” Flack looked to the next person in line. “Witch Watchers?”

Witch Watchers, Amelia thought privately, did little if anything at all let alone their fucking _jobs_ , which was to watch all major points of entry into the UK as well as all major exits, both magical and mundane, for anything that might be suspicious. Considering the number of people they suspected had been coming to join You-Know-Who from the continent, they’d not been doing particularly well. The Minister looked like she was losing strength with each word that came out of someone’s mouth; her hair, which had been bright gold at the start of her term, was now threaded through with silvery grey, and there were bags on bags on bags under her eyes, even with the charms meant to disguise it. (Amelia had enough of those charms on herself; she knew how to see through them.) Flack was listening, hands folded neatly against her chin. Minchum was staring at the wall.

After the Witch Watchers came the Improper Use of Magic office. There were more and more teenagers using magic outside of school, some of them to defend themselves—especially Muggleborns—but some of it was…decidedly not defensive. “We’re having difficulty keeping track of the Trace,” said Humphrey Niall, his Cornish accent so thick that Amelia could barely work out what he was saying. “You-Know-Who’s people have found a way of breaking it, so when they recruit teenagers—”

“There’s no way to establish where they are.”

The Trace was flawed from its inception, Amelia thought, but did not say. There was basically no way to establish who was performing the magic, only that it had been performed by or _around_ an underage wizard. It was less likely that the Trace was being broken in droves by Death Eaters—frankly, most of them weren’t clever enough to think of things like that—and more likely that the curses that teenage acolytes of You-Know-Who were casting were being caught up in the magic of the overage wizards around them, and thus hidden. But she kept her mouth shut.

Magical Law Enforcement Patrol came next, led by a chubby, anxious looking wizard named Josiah Pettigrew who stammered his way through his statement before sitting down with a thump and wiping sweat off his brow. Then the Investigation Department, led by Marbella Whitely, whose ice-blonde hair and see-through eyebrows were about the only interesting thing about her statement; the Investigation Department was famous for not being able to get anything done, or capture anyone at all, let alone someone who’d actually done something. Their numbers were kept up only through collecting people who’d been Imperiused, and that was no help to anyone at all.

Hitwizards, at least, were an easier lot to listen to. She’d heard that they were planning some kind of massive raid, but actually _hearing_ about it was a different matter. “Had a tipoff about a Dark wizard safehouse in Aberdeen,” said Rowle, hands locked behind his back. “We’ve been tracking the place for days; the doors sent you to a different location every time you opened them, and you needed the keyword to get you inside the actual safehouse. Managed to get it out of one of them and caught ten in the cell as of 0539 this morning.”

There was a soft round of applause from around the table.

“Anything on You-Know-Who?” Flack’s eyes sharpened. “Or any of his lieutenants?”

“We’re interrogating them as we speak,” said Rowle. “As soon as we know anything, we’ll issue a report.”

“Right.” Flack made a notation in her notebook. The Minister was still conspicuously silent, and Amelia wondered if she’d lost track of the conversation. Her eyes were fixed somewhere over Flack’s shoulder, and she couldn’t seem to focus. “Auror Office.”

Minchum erupted from his chair so quickly that Minister Jenkins jumped in her seat, and gave him a somewhat reproachful look. Minchum’s ears reddened, but he did not apologize. “There’s been a rash of killings across the country,” he said, his Northern accent rolling down like stones. “Many, as indicated by the Investigation Department, are committed by innocent witches or wizards who have been put under the Imperius Curse to murder their friends and neighbors for sport. Still others are committed by werewolves or giants, who, as we all know, have sworn their allegiance to You-Know-Who and have been doing his bidding in an attempt to frighten the populace—”

“Attempt,” said Moody, only half under his breath. “What _attempt_ , it’s working—”

Amelia trod on his foot.

“—there has been a string of incidents over the last three months which do not fit the pattern.” Minchum drew a breath. “I’ve taken the liberty of bringing the Aurors charged with the relevant investigations in for you to question them, as requested, Minister.”

Minister Jenkins nodded, and cleared her throat. “Thank you, Harold.”

Minchum ducked his head, but not before sending a viciously pleased smirk at Flack. Flack, of course, ignored it.

“Alastor,” said Minister Jenkins, and wiped a hand over her face. “And—I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Bones, ma’am,” said Amelia. “Amelia Bones.”

“You’re young,” said Jenkins, “to be investigating something like this. Why don’t you have someone more experienced on this, Minchum?”

 _Because there are too many Aurors being killed for us to keep up_ , Amelia nearly said. She straightened, and folded her hands behind her back.

“I picked her,” said Moody, not looking at her. Amelia shot a look at him, and wondered if he was telling the truth. “She knows what she’s doing.”

“Right,” said Jenkins. She rubbed a hand over her face again. “Harold’s already informed me that you believe this is a string of killings by the same individual—”

“Forgive me, ma’am,” said Amelia, “but we believe it’s individuals. Three, precisely. The third is—debatable, as they only seem to be a wardbreaker, and it could be someone different each time, but—the other two seem to be the same perpetrators.”

“On what evidence?” Rowle, partway down the table, frowned at them both. “Wands can be exchanged.”

“But the style of killing is the same in each case,” said Amelia. Next to her, Moody did nothing but loom, though she supposed they were all used to him doing that. He seemed to make a habit of it. Amelia looked at him, and when he said nothing, she drew her wand. Half the table froze. “If I may, Minister?”

Minister Jenkins waved a hand.

Amelia let out a breath, and pretended her hands weren’t slick with sweat as she focused her magic. She’d learned these crime scene reconstruction spells on a whim back in Auror training, thinking it might be more useful to show rather than tell someone how a crime had been committed—she’d not had cause to use them with Moody, who seemed to know what she was going to say before she said it half the time, but they’d come in handy once or twice. The Boot cottage in York, two-storied and delicate, wove itself into existence in a tangle of blue light. Amelia waited until the illusion was complete, hovering over the tabletop, before waving her wand again, and creating three small figures—one red, one orange, one yellow. “The wardbreaker has developed a way to cut through protective wards and seal them up again behind the team. It’s difficult magic, and it’s done the same way each time, even if the wands change; most likely either the same person is breaking the wards, or one person taught many how to do it, and they’re following the instructions to the letter.”

She waved her wand, and the yellow figure cast a sparking spell and then stood back, letting the other two in.

“The first one to enter is always Ripper,” she said. She kept her voice cool and composed as the red figure broke into the house, and a third figure—Svetlana Boot—fell in the front hallway. “We know this because of bootprints. Same size, same mold. Crack in the right heel. They don’t care enough to wipe their prints off the floor, even when they step in blood. We believe Ripper is a wizard, due to the size and shape of the foot.” Amelia waved her wand again. This time, Doris Boot stood on the staircase landing, coming down the stairs. The second figure, in orange, cast a spell, and she fell. “The second in this team is Hatchback. They could be male or female, but their specialization is Cutting Curses. The two will separate, Ripper with the younger children, Hatchback with the older children or the adults.”

“Ripper plays with kids,” said Moody. He did not look directly at anyone. His magical eye flicked from one person in the room to the next, sizing them up before moving on. It lingered on Rowle, and then on Flack. “Average age is about seven or eight, though he’ll take ‘em younger or older if he has no other option. Sometimes it’s rape, sometimes it’s torture. Either will get him off, but he never leaves enough evidence behind for us to track him. Hatchback uses Cutting Curses and Cruciatus. Makes patterns in the bodies, and then kills them, but only after hours have gone by. They both want time to do this work.”

She did not create little figures for the Boot twins. Weasley looked green. At the head of the table, Minister Jenkins waved her wand with a shaking hand to cast _Aguamenti,_ gulping down the water in her glass before wiping her mouth with a trembling exhale. “I see.”

“Afterwards they jinx the bodies,” said Amelia. “If they’ve killed the whole family, then they’ll melt them. If they’ve missed someone, then they’ll add preservation spells. They’ve used Explosion Spells, Entrail-Expulsion Spells, whatever you can think of. Seems to vary based on their mood. They’ll jinx the doors to the building, too, try and catch whoever’s first through the door and make it worse. Each crime scene is getting more elaborate, and more dangerous to enter and investigate.”

“Not to mention the Dark Mark can’t be taken down so easily anymore,” piped up Cadwallader, the administrative assistant for the Wizengamot. They all looked at him, and he wilted into his seat.

“At this point, Ripper and Hatchback are focused,” said Amelia. “They only attack Muggleborn families that are affiliated with the Ministry. Most particularly, they seem to attack families with Muggleborns—particularly Muggleborn women—who have been outspoken against the Death Eaters, You-Know-Who, or any kind of pureblooded policy agenda. Most disturbingly, they have found a way to get through Ministry wards.”

The room burst into whispers.

“ _Ministry wards_ ,” said Flack flatly, and looked at Minchum. Minchum stared back. “I find that difficult to believe.”

“I was under the impression that the Ministry wards had been taken down by the owners of the home,” said Rowle. “That, or their passwords had been stolen. It’s not difficult to lie in wait, disguised, until you hear a password.”

“The magical traces we’ve found in the wards indicate that that isn’t the case, sir,” said Amelia, as next to her Moody shuffled back and forth, looking ready to blow. “Each of these homes had privately established wards on top of wards that were designed by and for Ministry employees. Each time, the wards were cut through, cleanly, and sealed up again. At the first crime scene it took three members of the Ministry to bring the wards down before the Aurors could properly investigate.”

“But it could be a fluke, couldn’t it?” Pettigrew shrank a little when Minister Jenkins gave him a look, but pushed forward anyway. “It could just be—”

“It’s not a fluke,” snapped Moody. “Each of the last three families were Ministry, and each of them were rotting in their beds when we found ‘em, wards still in place.”

Pettigrew shut up. His face was blotchy white, and his hands clenched on the tabletop into tight fists.

“The crime scene wizards think that the wards are being cut open, not taken down and replaced,” said Amelia. “Which indicates that at this point, the issue is _breaking_ the wards and not _opening_ them. It’s still our recommendation—” she looked at Minchum, and then pushed forward “—that everyone in the Ward Office be interviewed to determine whether someone has been turned.”

“Nonsense,” said Cadwallader. “The Ward Office isn’t the one going around _killing people_ —”

“Are you _thick_ ,” said Moody, and Amelia stepped on his foot again. It didn’t work this time. “Merlin’s sagging bollocks, You-Know-Who’s no fool, he probably has people in every department working overtime to get more shite like this into the world—”

“Thank you, Alastor,” said Flack in a stony voice, and Moody quieted, though his face was still purple with rage. “As it is, we’ll take your recommendation for interrogating the Ward Office under advisement, Auror Bones. We’ll also issue a warning to all employees of the Ministry who are either Muggleborn or who have Muggleborns in their immediate family groups—”

“A warning isn’t going to do _shite_ —”

“ _Thank you, Alastor_ ,” said Flack. “You may both go.”

Amelia took down her illusion. In the sudden darkness, Minister Jenkins looked almost ghostly. She looked at Amelia for a long moment, and then at Flack and Minchum, who was near vibrating with frustration. Minchum slapped his hand to the tabletop.

“That’s _it_? That’s _all_? We tell you we’re investigating someone who can break through wards _set by the Ministry of Magic_ —like the wards on _this building_ —and all you have to say is—”

There was a sudden, echoing pop as the glass by the Minister’s hand shattered into six perfect pieces. They all fell silent. Jenkins relaxed her hand, and it was only then that Amelia realized she’d curled it into a fist.

“We’ll discuss it,” said Flack, looking unnerved, “in a moment, Harold. Aurors, you may go.”

Amelia did not have to be told twice. She seized Moody’s elbow, and yanked him towards the door. Nott was still waiting outside on the threshold, looking smug and snide as per usual; she ignored his unctuous “Good meeting then, Bones?” and dragged Moody down the hall, out into the main corridor, and then back towards the elevators without a word. He didn’t fight her, and that unsettled her more than anything. Alastor Moody wasn’t the sort to allow himself to be _dragged_ anywhere.

It was only once they were in the elevator and she’d mashed the button for the first floor that she said, “You’re an idiot. It’s a wonder Flack didn’t throw you out of your job.”

“They need me,” said Moody through his teeth. “ _And_ you. Too many dead.”

“Be that as it may, baiting the dragon is _stupid_ and you know it.” Her voice trembled, just a little. “What the bloody hell am _I_ supposed to do if you get chucked? Train a replacement?”

Moody blinked at her, and, to her absolute astonishment, laughed. It was only for a second, a breaking crack of a laugh that seemed more like snapping wood than anything, but he laughed, and then looked at her with a grim, determined sort of smile on his lips. “You’d be fine.”

“I am _not_ becoming Senior Auror at the age of twenty-five,” said Amelia. “So shove your temper up your arse.”

“And change your wards,” said Moody, sounding almost pleased. She was becoming increasingly convinced the man was insane. Clever, and powerful, but absolutely insane. “Can’t have the next Senior Auror dying in her sleep.”

“Fuck _off_ ,” said Amelia.

The elevator doors opened, and Ludo Bagman stepped in. He said hello to them both—mostly to Amelia, who ignored him; Bagman refused to listen when she turned him down, and he never quit trying—and then started babbling about Quidditch. _I was almost headhunted to a professional team, you know, if it wasn’t for this damn leg—_ The noise washed over her in a mountain of buzzing, never quite becoming something coherent. Amelia pressed a thumb to her lips, and stared at the wall instead of paying attention.

It was only when they’d both stepped out onto the first floor, and made their way back into Auror Headquarters, that Moody caught her elbow. Something was going on in the bullpen—people were running around with more purpose than usual, a handful of Hitwizards with their silver-trimmed robes huddled in the corner with an Auror, talking in low voices—but Amelia ignored it. She looked at Moody, and arched one eyebrow.

“Minister’s Muggleborn,” said Moody. His gaze went over her head, and tracked an Auror past her and out into the hallway. “So’s Flack.”

Amelia let out a breath. “I know.”

Moody looked at her for a minute longer. “If they don’t take guards—”

“We’ll talk to Minchum,” she said. “Try to get him to convince them.”

“Won’t work.”

“He can _try._ ”

Moody hissed through his teeth, but let her go. Amelia put her shoulders back, and lifted her head.

“I’ll check in with Paige,” she said. “Maybe there’ll be something new.”

Moody nodded. At this point, there was nothing else they could do.

.

.

.

Time marched inexorably onward.

Hermione skipped the Halloween feast. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea—it alerted Lily and Mary to the fact that she was still _doing_ _poorly_ , in Mary’s words—but she couldn’t stand the thought of attending the feast without Harry and Ron, and although she tried to get up the courage for it the day of turned out to be too much for her. Beyond that, it was something—different—now, now that she’d met James Potter and Lily Evans: Halloween 1975 was six years to the day of the life they presumably had remaining, and she did not want to intrude on the joy of the feast with her misery and moping. By the time Lily and Mary returned from whatever party they’d gone to—Slug something—she’d curled up in bed and fallen asleep.

Other than occasional bouts of melancholy and extreme anxiety about whether she should write to a new mind healer, Hermione was muddling along fairly well, at least in her opinion. At the very least, her magic didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Her control over it seemed to fizzle sometimes—she was still sparking whenever she grew angry, and she genuinely wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to stop that from happening—but she’d lost none of the power and none of the control that she had over her own magic besides throwing off the occasional flare of temper. She didn’t try to cast her Patronus again, however. She didn’t want the reminder of how deeply she had been marked by her trip to this new world.

Adding Lupin to the group of people she practiced dueling with turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Having three people there supporting her seemed to help Alice’s nerves, especially because Alice and Lupin were friends—Alice certainly lit up when she saw him, and they chatted for a while before Hermione broke them into pairs and had them practice Stunning Charms. Lupin, she found, was already a good teacher even at the age of fifteen; he was patient as he explained to Alice why her aim was off (“You keep just—flicking too hard, you just need to think about where you want it to go instead of trying to aim so forcefully—“) and when they cycled partners, Lupin to Hermione and Lily to Alice, he was a fast enough duelist to be challenging.

He also—and she was incredibly fond of him for this—did not behave at all in the way that some of the other boys in Gryffindor behaved. Hermione had thought that sexism had been bad in the wizarding world of the nineties; the seventies were, somehow, worse. She’d never had so many people comment on her hair or her bum in her _life_. (Not that it hadn’t happened at her Hogwarts—there had been more than a few boys, Zacharias Smith not least amongst them, who’d had a comment or two about Angelina’s backside or Ginny’s legs or Hannah’s chest—but not this frequently, and not this _brazenly._ They’d been infrequent enough that she’d thought the taps to her bum had been someone’s bag before turning around to see a Hufflepuff boy grin at her and flounce by without waiting for her to respond.)

They’d laid off after a few well-placed Stinging Jinxes—she felt somewhat bad about where she’d aimed them, but at least it shut people up—but other girls in the dorm and in the hallways still complained about hands or leering eyes, and Hermione now had a list in the back of her mind of boys to avoid. Several of them were future Death Eaters—Avery and Mulciber in particular, no surprise there—but there were a few names, like _Goldstein_ and _Fawley_ , that made her incredibly anxious. At least she knew that even teenage Lupin did not have to be told off for wandering eyes or intrusive fingers, and for all of Sirius and James’s nonsense, they’d never once touched someone without permission that Hermione knew of. Hermione wondered, after a Hufflepuff made a particularly repulsive comment to Mary about fancying witches, if that was just the definition of a _good bloke_ for most witches around here: didn’t touch without asking first.

Her weeks had a rhythm to them now. Classes, homework, dueling, sleep. Or: classes, homework, reading, sleep. She climbed the ladder back to the ninety-ninth percentile within a month, and found herself joined, in the ninety-eighth and ninety-fifth respectively, by Lupin and Lily; neither of them, to her great astonishment, were annoyed in the slightest at her being the cleverest. “It’s not as though you don’t deserve it,” said Lily, when Kettleburn returned their Care of Magical Creatures essay with an O marked at the top of Hermione’s parchment. “Besides, I’m just—wretched at practical Transfiguration.” Lupin, in contrast, made no acknowledgment of it at all, aside from a quiet _well done_ after she answered a difficult question. It drove the Ravenclaws mad, but then again, she was used to that. The idea of it not annoying everyone around her, though, was—very strange indeed.

She wrote Marlene and Magda once a week with updates on Mo and Mitzy—Mitzy was much more forthcoming about her social life than Mo, though Mo, Hermione supposed, had something to hide; she very much doubted that even the benevolent Magda was aware that _Reg_ was in fact _Regulus Black._ She wrote Unspeakable Croaker once a week, too, with no reply, and became increasingly crabby about it. She’d stopped eating breakfast, mostly because most mornings now she woke up with nausea from half-remembered nightmares; the breakfast hour was, instead, dedicated to visiting the thestrals out in the forest, and the few times Professor Kettleburn saw her wandering out there alone he gave her ten points instead of lecturing her and sending her back inside. (She was beginning to understand _why_ Professor Kettleburn had retired with only one full limb and one half-limb remaining; his sense of self-preservation, and his ability to recognize it in others, seemed to be severely defunct.) Visiting the thestrals was, perhaps, maudlin, but it did help her somehow. Hermione had decided, uncharacteristically, to stop questioning herself about it.

 _The City_ was still far out of her reach. Though she’d asked Professor Iqbal for a permission slip to enter the Restricted Section—wanting to do a special study on goblin culture, she said, and Iqbal had eyed her for a long, careful moment before signing the bit of paper—there was no copy of it in the Hogwarts library. Asking Madam Pince got her snapped at and told that she’d have to wait for a copy to be shipped from Durmstrang. Why Durmstrang? “No goblin dared break into _that_ place to take the damn book away,” said Madam Pince, and passive-aggressively stamped a book that had been put into the return slot. “I’ll send you a bit of mail when it comes in. Until then, go away. And don’t touch those books barehanded.”

So there was nothing to do but wait there, either. It was tremendously annoying.

The first weekend in November dawned bright and clear, albeit with a heavy frost that coated the windows of Gryffindor Tower with curlicues. It had not snowed, not yet, but the promise of it was heavy in the air as half the school tramped down to the Great Hall to get breakfast before that day’s Quidditch game—first of the season, Gryffindor versus Slytherin, and one that Frank Longbottom had been driving Mary to distraction with. Hermione had avoided paying attention when Mary talked Quidditch—it made her heart ache in a way she couldn’t hide, what with her emotions playing all over her face—but she’d known just how often Frank had had them practicing, and Mary had stomped in to the fifth year girls’ dormitory covered in mud every night this week in preparation for this.

Frank, she’d discovered, was a Chaser. So was James. Sirius was a Beater; Mary was Seeker. The third Chaser was a boy named Gabriel Morgan, a Muggleborn who usually goofed off in class and had a tendency to cast spells at girls’ uniform skirts to get them to blow up like Marilyn Monroe’s. (She’d hit him with a Stinging Hex after the first time he’d tried it on her, and he hadn’t attempted it since, but Alice, with her long shapely legs and her inability to say boo to a goose, seemed to be a frequent target.) She didn’t know the Keeper’s name; only that she was a very tall, very burly looking seventh year with a brutal looking jaw, but had the softest voice Hermione had ever heard out of a human being. 

The other Beater was Gideon Prewett, and he seemed very intent on getting her to come to the match; he wheedled through half of Transfiguration the Friday before until Professor McGonagall caught him and gave him a tongue-lashing (“You, Prewett, with your brother a Prefect, you know better than to gossip in my classroom—”) leaving Hermione to escape the classroom before he could catch up.

Mary and the rest of the team had gone down to the pitch early—“Frank wants to check conditions,” Mary said, as she’d moaned her way down the stairs at seven o’clock—and Hermione had skipped breakfast in favor of visiting the thestrals, so she was just returning to the Great Hall as most of the school was tramping out the other way, down the hill towards the Quidditch pitch. Hermione stepped aside to let people pass, ignoring the curious looks people were giving her for not joining the crowd. She could have waited longer before heading back up to the castle, she supposed, but she hadn’t wanted to be obvious, wandering alone across the grounds. _So much for that plan._ Alice waved at her as she passed, wrapped up in both a Hufflepuff and a Gryffindor scarf, and Hermione waved back before slipping into the castle and starting up the stairs towards the library. If she wasn’t going to the game, she reasoned, she could get some studying done. 

The Madam Pince in her world had almost never attended Quidditch games, and the one in this one was the same; she gave Hermione a beady look as Hermione entered the library, suspicious and untrusting, before looking back down at her own reading material. Hermione found a seat towards the back, between the history and language shelves (the premiere text on Gobbledegook swore at her as she walked by it, likely remembering her slightly rough page-through the last time she’d been in looking up the Goblin Wars) and spread her things across the table. She’d made a schedule for herself at the beginning of the term that included ninety minute study blocks on the weekends; she could start with Healing, as she knew nothing about the baseline beyond what Madam Pomfrey had mentioned in class, and then move on to Alchemy, and by then most likely the Quidditch game would be finished and she could retreat back to Gryffindor Tower with a book on family magic without feeling like a recluse.

Hermione had been working steadily for about an hour before she noticed him. If he hadn’t sworn, she probably wouldn’t have at all. Severus Snape was bundled into the far back of the library, crouched over his papers, books and parchment strewn all over the table as if some kind of bomb had gone off. Hermione looked at him in shock—she’d thought the library was empty, aside from her—before putting the end of her quill in her mouth, thoughtfully. It was, she thought, very much a fifth year look. She’d been that way last year, frantically studying even at the start of first term, trying to cram as much information into her brain as she could while the rest of the year was pretending OWLs weren’t coming up faster than they all anticipated. He’d skipped the Quidditch game, though, and that surprised her.

_On second thought, he’s not the sort to like Quidditch._

Hermione frowned, gnawing on the end of her quill without noticing. Beyond Potions class, and occasionally noticing him in hallways or overhearing snide comments in a few other core courses, Hermione truly hadn’t spent much time considering Severus Snape. He was—she didn’t want to say quieter than his adult counterpart, but he was far more unobtrusive. He seemed to be content to be entirely forgotten about, and everyone else seemed willing to forget _him_. Sometimes she saw him sitting with some other Slytherins that she recognized—Avery, Mulciber—but for the most part he seemed very much alone, and in a twisted, uncomfortable way it made her think of her first year.

She looked down at her parchment again, and idly scratched through a line of runes she didn’t need. Professor Dumbledore had trusted Professor Snape in her world, but that had been her world. In this one, Snape was still only a fifteen-year-old boy, and—she stole another look at him—a lonely one at that. _And_ a Slytherin, she reminded herself. _And_ , if Marlene and Mo were right, he was just as much a bully as he had ever been, just—quieter.

A book slammed down on the tabletop, and Hermione jerked her head up to find Snape much, much closer, and glowering at her. His eyes burned in his thin face, and his lips had pulled back from his teeth in a snarl. There was—and she had to bite her tongue to keep from hysterical laughter—a smear of ink on his long, hooked nose.

“You’re staring at me,” said Snape, through gritted teeth. “Stop it.”

Hermione looked up at Madam Pince—they were too far away for her to hear—and then back at Snape. “Sorry, I just—”

“If you have a problem, fuck _off_ ,” he said. “I was here first. _You_ go somewhere else.”

“That’s mature,” Hermione sniped back at him, and then almost bit through her tongue. _Don’t sass a teacher,_ but Snape wasn’t a teacher, he was a boy, younger than her, and there were red blotches high in his cheeks that she thought might be fury. “It’s a library. There’s enough space for the both of us.”

Snape, seething, glared at her. Hermione, who had much more practice with his glares than he realized, simply met his gaze and waited. He gave in surprisingly quickly, whipping his head away from her and marching back to his table, still covered with books. She thought he might be studying Arithmancy. That, in and of itself, surprised her—Snape had never been someone she’d ever considered to be interested in Arithmancy—but when she thought about it, it made some sense. Potioneering required an Arithmancy OWL at the very least; getting an E or an O at the NEWT level was preferred. If she were completely honest with herself, she’d always sort of pictured Snape as someone who emerged, fully formed, as a despicably talented potioneer with a bullying streak a mile wide and a complete reticence to interact with another human being without snarling. Seeing him swearing under his breath at arithmancy was _not_ included in that image.

 _Not everything is the same_ , she reminded herself, and frowned. _Not everything in this world is the same._

 _He’s a fifteen-year-old boy,_ said Magda again in her head _._ And: _Professor Dumbledore trusts him._

Well—if she could give Peter Pettigrew and Regulus Black a chance—

It was a surprisingly easy decision, in the end. Hermione gathered her books, marched over to Snape’s table, and stood there, waiting, wondering if she was making a very large, very costly mistake. He seemed determined to ignore her—she knew he could see her there; his shoulders hitched up around his ears and his quill slowed in its determined, spiky scratch across his spare parchment, but he said nothing, and did not look up. Hermione turned her head just enough to see his calculations, and then pointed. “You need to calculate based off the method of toxification of the object, not off the spell used to detoxify it. If you’re doing a Riemann’s array, at least.”

Snape’s head whipped up, his thin lips already curling back from his coffee-stained teeth in a dreadful snarl, but Hermione cocked an eyebrow.

“You’ve been swearing for an hour,” she said. “It’s irritating.”

“ _Fuck. Off_ ,” said Snape, and yanked his parchment out of her reach. “I don’t need _your_ help, Granger.”

“I’m good at Arithmancy,” said Hermione absently. She put her books down in the sliver of space he’d left on the tabletop. “I can help.”

“Do you have a death wish?” said Snape, teeth still bared. “Or are you just unbearably stupid?”

“Clearly neither,” said Hermione, “because I can see where you’ve done your numerology wrong.”

“You’re fucking _insufferable_.”

“Fine,” said Hermione briskly. “Don’t accept help then. I can tell you that Riemann’s arrays are a big part of the OWL for Arithmancy, though.”

Snape sneered. “You went to _Beauxbatons_.” He pronounced it _boh-battens_. “How would you—”

“I’m in sixth year Arithmancy classes.” Hermione rolled her eyes. “You think people don’t complain? Besides, Professor Sinistra talks about them all the time. They’re practically all we’re doing this term. If you don’t master them now, you’ll be completely lost by the time exams come ‘round.”

He wavered. She could see it, not in his face but in the way his pale, spidery hands curled around his parchment; his fingers loosened, just a little, as he looked down at his assignment. Hermione, sensing blood, went for the kill.

“It’ll take you another hour and a half to do it that way.” She offered her hand, and waited. “Let me see.”

He wavered, again. Then, looking up at her with very dark eyes, he said, “What the hell do you want, Granger?”

“I thought you were a Slytherin, _Severus_ ,” she snapped. “I figured you’d appreciate the help, no matter who it came from.”

Snape flinched. He looked at her, and then away, eyes darting towards Madam Pince. Madam Pince wasn’t paying attention; she was deep in her own book, ignoring their harsh whispers.

“I’m not going to jinx it,” she said. “Or feed you the wrong answer.”

Snape hesitated.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” said Hermione, and huffed. “Just give me the parchment, Snape.”

Snape warred with himself. Then, very carefully, as if he were afraid she’d scratch him, he offered the parchment. Hermione dropped down hard into the seat next to him, and pulled the parchment close, stealing a quill off the table to tend to the numerology. He wasn’t exactly misunderstanding it, just misapplying it, but numerology was tricky; calculating the probability of a toxic reaction of an unknown substance was hard enough as it was without going down the wrong mathematical route. She turned the parchment over, started a new array.

“You chose the wrong baseline,” she said, and leaned back enough that he could see. He didn’t say anything, or look at the paper; his eyes burned into the side of her skull as she spoke. “If you’re going to calculate toxification rates, you need to focus on the method. Same principles as antivenins in Potions. The end result can come about any number of ways, but toxification itself occurs in various patterns that are unique to the material; it’s only by studying the pattern that you can get back to the source.”

“Obviously,” said Snape, sneeringly.

“So why’d you start with this arm?” Hermione leaned back in her seat, and added another set of numbers to the array. “It’s useless.” 

When she darted a look at him, he was still staring, but now he was looking at the parchment. His eyes flicked from number to number, brows wrinkling together. “Toxicity rates vary depending on the material used,” he said, as if chipping the words out of granite. “I thought—there would be a different percentage rate at final saturation. Depending on the material.”

It was, she thought, clever. “Numerology is predicting the statistical probability that something _will_ occur,” she said. “At least, via a Riemann’s array. You’re thinking like a potioneer, not an arithmancer. Start at the beginning, not the end result. There,” she added, and put the quill down. “From there you can finish it yourself. So—I can’t ruin your grade.”

Snape took the parchment, and pulled it towards himself to study it closely. He did not say thank you, even when he finished. She honestly didn’t expect him to. He stared at her instead, deep-set black eyes glinting in his sallow, twisted face.

“Did Evans put you up to this?” he said, almost accusing. Hermione blinked.

“Why would Lily put me up to it?”

The sneer returned. “You can’t lie worth a damn.”

“Because I’m not lying,” she said. “Besides, Lily’s not the sort to _trick_ people, it’s not like I’m planning a prank or something—”

“No,” he blurted, and then shut up. The warring look came back. Then he said, “I—”

The scream split the air like a razor blade. Hermione did not hesitate. Her wand was already in her hand as she leapt out of the library chair, her cloak flaring out behind her as she ran. The hall outside the library was mostly empty, but she could hear shouting further down; when the scream echoed again—high, thin, _young_ —she skidded left and sprinted up the corridor towards the fork, following her ears.

She almost missed the cloaked figure at the end of the corridor leading towards the basement stairs. They were concealed behind a massive suit of armor, one more suited to a half-giant than a wizard; it was only the frantic kicking of the little body on the floor that caught her attention, even as another, horrifying scream ricocheted up the corridor. Another figure stood over it, wand raised. It was a sixth year, she thought. A Ravenclaw boy. She couldn’t remember his name. At his feet lay a first-year girl in red and gold, the wee one, Lucinda Nakama; her hair was splayed across the stone, and there was blood running down the side of her head. She was _screaming_ , screaming and screaming, and as she watched Lucinda curled into a tight ball, her voice cracking almost in half—Hermione could not breathe—she knew what that was, what that meant, she’d seen it— _Cruciatus_ —

Hermione did not hesitate. She raised her wand, but the Ravenclaw had heard her coming; he whipped around, and a bolt of silver light erupted from the end of his wand. She cast a Shield Charm without speaking, and in the next moment Hermione had turned side-on, slashed her wand down in a vicious arc, and cried, “ _Stupefy_!”—he blocked—she ducked the jet of red light reflected back at her, saw him raise his wand over the girl, saw his lips move—

“ _Expelliarmus_!”

The Disarming spell came from three directions at once. The first—Hermione’s—hit the Ravenclaw in the back, throwing his wand from his hand and into Hermione’s grasp. The second came from further up the hall, a shock of crimson, and struck him in the shoulder, knocking him sideways. The third hit him so hard that it flung him into the suit of armor. Professor McGonagall sliced her wand through the air, and the armor froze in midair as it fell; in the same moment, Professor Meadowes, her beaded braids clicking against her back, cast another, silent charm, and the Ravenclaw fell in an unconscious heap on the floor.

“ _Miss Granger_ ,” said Professor McGonagall, in a voice that was half-horror, half-fury. “What in _Merlin’s name_ are you doing here—”

“I heard the scream,” said Hermione, and realized that Snape had come panting up behind her, red burning in his cheeks. “Is she—”

“— _completely_ reckless, should have waited for a teacher—”

“He was going to—”

“Out of the way,” said Professor Meadowes, and Hermione bolted sideways as Professor Meadowes levitated both Lucinda and the Ravenclaw up into the air with a quick charm and started towards the Hospital Wing, their still bodies flanking her like corpses. A crowd was gathering, some behind Professor McGonagall, others behind Hermione and Snape; Lily, at Professor McGonagall’s back, was white as paper, and the Gryffindor team were all still in their robes, broomsticks over their shoulders. For some reason, half the crowd seemed to be covered in blue feathers. A few of them had hair that had turned black and white. One girl, Hermione realized, had a long, forked black tongue, like a snake. She thought of the smug looks on the Marauders’ faces after practice a few weeks before, and then discarded that as unimportant. Pranks didn’t matter right now. 

Something ugly slid across Sirius’s face at the sight of Snape. It was the same look, Hermione realized, her insides shriveling, that Sirius had when he looked at Kreacher, or at the portrait of his mother in Grimmauld Place. Complete and utter loathing.

“ _Snivellus_ ,” he said, and sneered. Behind her, Snape went stiff as a board, and out of the corner of her eye Hermione could see his hand curling into a fist around his wand. “Of course. Doing your master’s dirty work already?”

“ _Mr. Black_ ,” said Professor McGonagall, her voice a whipcrack. “This is _not_ the moment—twenty points from Gryffindor—”

“He’s _Snape_ ,” said Sirius, loudly, “Professor, it’s Snape, you _know_ what he’s like—”

“ _Thirty,_ Mr. Black, don’t push me—”

“But Professor—” That was James, and behind him, Lily’s face twisted in fury, her eyes fixed on the back of James’s head. “Look at him, he was right here, he must have been the one to—”

“He didn’t do it,” said Hermione, and beside her Snape’s eyes snapped to her face. James’s did too, and Sirius, who had gone almost purple with fury and frustration, scowled at her. Hermione ignored all three of them. “He couldn’t have, Professor—”

“All of you—”

“How do you know?” James said. His eyes had gone narrow, his mouth thin. For once, she did not think he looked like Harry. There was something nasty in his anger that Harry didn’t usually have, a kind of curling, coiling viciousness that she had never seen on Harry’s face, even in his worst moments. “He could have—”

“Because he was with me the whole time,” said Hermione, and crossed her arms tight over her chest. The Ravenclaw’s wand burned hot against her fingers. “We were studying in the library when we heard her scream. When I came here, he followed me. We were both there from before the game started.”

James sputtered into silence. Snape stared, unblinkingly, at Hermione.

“Right,” said Professor McGonagall. She shook herself back into seriousness. “Miss Granger, Mr. Snape, with me, please— _give me that wand,_ Miss Granger, at once—the rest of you, get back to your Common Rooms—Prefects, if you would—”

“Yes, Professor,” said Lupin and Lily at the same time. Lily tossed a look over her shoulder at Hermione and Snape as she turned to leave, mouthing something Hermione didn’t catch. Next to her, Snape went stiff all over, and then relaxed. His lips pressed thin as paper.

“Come,” said Professor McGonagall. “We’re going to see the Headmaster.”

.

.

.

It took more than two hours to explain what had happened to Professor Dumbledore, mostly because for the first hour Professor Dumbledore could not be found. Hermione and Snape sat in the Headmaster’s office in absolute silence, Snape turning various colors in turn—first a ghastly shade of white, then a blotchy red, then white again, then green, then white once more—as they waited. He didn’t say anything, and neither did she. There was nothing really to talk about. _Oh, we walked in on a sixth year torturing a first year for no reason, would you care to comment?_ Hermione spent the time smoothing her skirt down her knees with sweaty hands, and—after Fawkes fluttered to her knee with a soft cry—stroking the phoenix’s feathered cheek, struggling to breathe right. Fawkes did not sing, not exactly, but every so often he let out a low, soft coo, and it eased the tension in her back, eased the stress she held in a knot between her ribs. It helped, and she stroked his feathers in steady beats, wondering a little at the awe of having a phoenix settled on her knee.

After about an hour, Professor Dumbledore swept in. It took thirty minutes for them each to go through their stories—Snape with his eyes fixed on the ground; Hermione stammering and trying not to let her hands shake too badly—before Professor Slughorn appeared and whisked Snape off to his office in the dungeons. Professor McGonagall had long since vanished to check on Lucinda and the Ravenclaw boy. Hermione stood to go with them, but Professor Dumbledore raised a hand. Her heart sank like a brick in her chest.

“Stay behind a moment, Miss Granger, will you?”

Hermione looked at Snape. Snape did not meet her gaze; he kept his eyes firmly on the ground as he stalked out after Professor Slughorn, the door swinging closed behind them with a low snap, like something that might echo in a tomb. A rusty silence fell. Hermione wet her lips.

“Truly, Professor, Snape didn’t do anything—it was just a coincidence—what J—Potter said—”

“I am well aware,” said Professor Dumbledore, suddenly looking very tired, “of the rivalries between Slytherin and Gryffindor. While it is a regrettable state of affairs on occasion, it is not something that has changed in my lifetime. The times we live in have only widened the gaps between Houses.”

He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, and went quiet. Hermione fidgeted with the hem of her skirt.

“Please,” he said, after a moment. “Take a seat.”

“Oh, no, I—”

“For Fawkes,” he said, a little bit of humor lighting his mouth. “If not for yourself. He rarely gets worshipped as he deserves, and he seems to like you.”

Hermione wavered. But the temptation of the phoenix was too much for her. She felt lighter, somehow, stroking the bird’s feathered cheek. She sat down again, and Fawkes flapped his wings on the edge of Professor Dumbledore’s desk before making the hop to her knee, trilling softly, almost like a secret. He barely weighed anything, but the warmth of him was palpable, and when she raised her fingers, he nibbled gently at her fingertips before letting her settle back in to stroking her thumb over his cheek.

“Where did you find a phoenix, sir?” said Hermione. It had been a question that gnawed at her for years, now, but she’d never had a chance to ask. “I thought most of them were gone.”

“I suppose I am quite lucky,” said Professor Dumbledore thoughtfully. “I was traveling to meet an old friend in Greece, and I came upon Fawkes in the Parthenon. The tale is long and complicated, but I saved him, and he saved me, and I have been honored by his decision to accompany me ever since.” He smiled. “I think Fawkes worries I overwork myself.”

Fawkes let out a soft, echoing cry, and Hermione took a breath. She’d read about phoenixes, and Harry had told her about the feel of them, how it was like swallowing warm water and sunlight to hear them sing, but it was different to feel it so close like this. She felt airy light for the first time in months. Since before the Orbis Sanguis, certainly. She stroked her thumb against Fawkes’ cheek again, and swallowed.

“Sir,” said Hermione, looking up. “Is Lucinda all right?”

“Miss Nakama will recover,” said Professor Dumbledore. He sank into the chair behind his desk, and looked at Fawkes, who was still perched on Hermione’s knee. “She is currently sleeping in St. Mungo’s. Her parents have been notified by Professor McGonagall. I imagine they are being brought to the hospital at this moment.”

“St. Mungo’s?” She thought of the small girl, the blood on her head. “Was she—”

“Madam Pomfrey healed most of her injuries quite easily,” said Professor Dumbledore. “However, considering that—something—coincidentally transfigured half the attendees of the Quidditch match into caricatures of their house mascots upon Gryffindor’s victory, it seemed advisable that Miss Nakama be removed to a quieter place for care. At this point, I believe Madam Pomfrey has her hands full removing the snakeskin from half of Slytherin House.” 

That wouldn’t surprise her, considering the blue-and-bronze feathers she’d seen sprouting in that hallway, the badger fur and lion tails. The only one who’d seem unaffected, other than the professors, had been Lily. Hermione bent her head, letting her hair fall forward, and kept her mouth shut.

“Miss Nakama is very lucky,” said Professor Dumbledore, “that you remained behind in the castle. Had you not been there, we might have had a very different ending.”

He looked at her, and waited. It took an embarrassingly long time for her to process the implication. Hermione jerked her head up, and on her knee, Fawkes gave her a disgruntled look before hunching down and letting his eyes drift halfway closed. “I didn’t—it wasn’t because I knew anything, sir. I’m—truly. It was a coincidence.” 

What little light there had been in Professor Dumbledore’s face drained away. He sighed again, resettled his spectacles on his nose. “I see,” he said, and then again: “I see. That’s—to be honest I find myself disappointed. Not in you, Miss Granger, but—but even for men as old as I, you see, it is very tempting to think that somewhere out there, someone holds all the answers. And when one is confronted with such…”

He trailed off, and stared thoughtfully out the window.

“Sir,” said Hermione, and Professor Dumbledore looked up at her again. “Was—was the boy—”

She couldn’t say it. _Was he a Death Eater?_ Professor Dumbledore shook his head, and even as he did he seemed to age a decade, more; he rubbed at the bridge of his nose again, and sighed.

“No,” he said, after a long moment. “No, he was not an agent of the enemy.”

Hermione said, “Oh,” and fell silent again.

Professor Dumbledore watched her. He did not dismiss her; he simply looked at her for a while, pensive and careful, before saying, “I believe—though there is not yet proof—that Mr. Corner was under the influence of the Imperius Curse. From what you describe, it—seems likely.”

The ground opened up under her feet. _Corner._ Michael Corner’s father? Uncle? Cousin? There was a rushing in her ears that she couldn’t quite manage to push away. Hermione swallowed. “Oh,” she said again. “That’s—oh.”

“At this point it is unlikely we will find the original caster. We cannot confiscate the wands of all four hundred students, not to mention the parents who attended today’s game.” He sighed, once again. “I understand why you wish to keep your knowledge to yourself, Miss Granger. The inclination to keep secrets is—” He stopped. “Should I be in your circumstances, I believe I would share your reticence. But I think in many ways the reverse is true. Should you be in my circumstances I believe—I believe you would understand why I ask again, Miss Granger, to share what you know. If you have heard of anything like this, anything similar—”

“Not at Hogwarts, sir,” she said. Then, thinking of Ginny and Riddle’s diary and the basilisk, she swallowed. _God, the basilisk. The basilisk is still alive._ It wouldn’t wake unless Riddle called, but—still. She swallowed again. “Not—not this year.” 

“Never?”

“No.” She looked him in the face. “I can’t say I heard much about what was going on at Hogwarts during—during this time, but what I _did_ hear was certainly nothing like this.”

He did not look angry or disappointed. He just nodded, and steepled his fingers against the top of his desk. Fawkes let out another soft, cooing cry, and looked back at Professor Dumbledore, tipping his golden head from side to side.

“I’m sorry,” said Hermione. It was a silly and small thing to say, but it bubbled up her throat just to spite her. “I—I don’t know what else I can do.”

“You have done a great deal today already,” said Professor Dumbledore. “Miss Nakama is alive due to your prompt action.”

“Professor McGonagall and Professor Meadowes—”

“I have spoken with both of them, and they both credit your distraction of Mr. Corner with him being unable to follow through on his next curse. Whatever it may have been, I do not doubt that whoever placed him under the Imperius Curse gave him explicit instructions. You might have saved her life.”

Hermione rubbed her slick palms against her robes. She couldn’t meet Professor Dumbledore’s eyes anymore.

“I have heard from Professor Kettleburn,” said Professor Dumbledore, “that you have been spending a great deal of time out with the thestral herd.”

“Oh.” She swallowed. “Um—yes. I—I couldn’t see them, until—what happened in my world. And they’re—they remind me of my friends.”

“I recall that you mentioned you rode thestrals to the Department of Mysteries,” said Professor Dumbledore, and something eased in her chest. She knew, logically, that Professor Dumbledore wanted to hear more from her than she could ever tell him, but—but he also _knew._ Enough, at least. She could be less wary of her words, here. Fawkes, on her knee, bumped his beak back into her hand. “Sometimes a bond is formed, on such occasions.”

“I don’t think I’ve—” She blushed. “No, I—I’m quite sure I annoy them. But they’re nice to spend time with.”

“Because they don’t ask impertinent questions?”

His eyes were twinkling. Hermione blushed again.

“Don’t look so embarrassed, Miss Granger. I have complete faith that the whole of Gryffindor has been asking a great many questions of you. Thestrals are quite peaceful creatures in comparison.” He paused. “Only remain in sight of the groundskeeper’s hut, if you please. The Forbidden Forest carries its name for a reason, after all.”

She was back on even ground. Hermione looked over his shoulder at the portrait of Headmaster Dippet, who was snoring in his chair so loudly and deliberately that it had to be an act. It was harmless, she supposed, that the portraits would hear of her. She presumed they had some kind of spell on them to keep from sharing the Headmaster’s secrets. And besides—who believed a portrait, anyway? “Yes, Professor.”

“Forgive me,” he said. “It may seem like far too little, far too late, and I know that it is, occasionally, quite irking to hear questions like these put to you over and over again, but—I heard tell from Madam Pomfrey that she has been making inquiries on your behalf regarding your healing. Is all well?”

She didn’t quite know what to say. Hermione pet Fawkes’s wing, and then said, through numb lips: “I was thinking about finding a new mind healer.”

Professor Dumbledore nodded.

“Only it’s stupid, isn’t it?” she said, after a moment. “It’s not like I can tell any other mind healer any more than I could tell Healer Adegbuyi.”

He nodded again. “The consequences of working with the Department of Mysteries, I’m afraid.”

Professor Dumbledore fell quiet again, and watched her.

“Sir,” said Hermione after a moment. “I—will I change things? By being here?”

He tipped his head. On her lap, Fawkes made a soft cooing noise, nosing at her fingers. “What do you mean, Miss Granger?”

“Only—” She made a vague gesture with her free hand. “I know—things that happened in my world. What if I—if I change everything just by being here? I keep thinking if I do or say something wrong, I’ll ruin it all. Because if—if I do something wrong or say something wrong, that starts a whole new world, doesn’t it? And—and it could be so much worse for the people in that world because of something I—something I let slip, something I did, and I can’t—I can’t _do_ anything. And I can’t tell anyone anything because it might make it worse _here_ , in this world. And—and after what happened with Lucinda—”

She trailed off into silence.

Professor Dumbledore stood. His robes swept back behind him as he went to the window, looking out at Hogwarts, at the Forest and the grounds and the glens. Hermione, when she turned her head, could see a thestral winging through the air over the trees, a far beacon in the distance.

“Space magic is—despite the great efforts of the Department of Mysteries—still very much theoretical,” he said, finally. “Many have attempted to study it, but we are not capable enough—or, perhaps, not imaginative enough—to fully be able to understand or even begin to ask the right sort of questions. I believe that yes, perhaps Unspeakable Croaker is right—that each decision we make has alternatives, and that, perhaps, in another world, we take those separate paths—but I do not believe that means that one person has the power to impact the entire world.”

Hermione bit her lip. “But I—”

“Your position is, of course, a unique one,” said Professor Dumbledore. “You know of things that the rest of us cannot, by the very nature of how you came to be in this world. But that knowledge, Miss Granger, does not in itself guarantee that you have more or less power over what may, will, or will not come to pass. Our choices make us, yes—but each of us has choices to make, many of them. And each of us choose every day. It may impact the universe, or it may not. It should not prevent us from making the choice.”

On the wall, Phineas Nigellus Black opened his eyes, just a sliver. He looked at her, and when he caught her looking, snapped his eyes shut again immediately. Hermione thought of the portrait of Phineas Nigellus in Grimmauld Place, wondered if he could see into the home and life and world of Walburga and Orion Black, of their two sons. She swallowed hard.

“Your fear is understandable,” said Professor Dumbledore. “But it should not prevent you from living your life. Choices are choices. If we let the thought of _what if_ drown us, then we forget to live, Miss Granger.”

“It does not do,” she said, softly, “to dwell on dreams, and forget to live.”

Professor Dumbledore looked at her over his shoulder. “That’s quite good.”

 _That’s you,_ she almost said, and bit her tongue. “I forgot where I heard it.”

“Unfortunate.” Professor Dumbledore looked back out at the lake, and then turned to her. “Now—I believe I have kept you prisoner long enough, Miss Granger. You ought to return to your dormitory. Professor McGonagall will be resuming her duties later this evening, and I am quite sure that those not currently afflicted with, if I may say, fairly impressive lions’ manes will be eager to know you are safe and well.”

And that, as they say, was that.


	9. Unexpected Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for swearing (including the dreaded C-word, watch out, Americans), lots of discussion of bullying / James and Sirius bullying Snape, Slughorn being gross.
> 
> ///
> 
> Sorry I've been gone for so long, loves! I moved across the country, had a VERY bad incident with my eyes, and COVID has been draining me of all energy. I hope to start updating more regularly soon.

The rest of November passed in a slurry of grey, sticky snow, the kind that never stuck and froze solid overnight to create sheets of ice over every surface. It seemed to haunt the students inside as much as it frustrated the teachers who had to charm it away. Hermione, who’d always been rather proud of her bluebell flames, had started a surprisingly popular trend of carrying fire around in a jar; it felt like she couldn’t turn around without seeing a huddled group of second years with their hands close to a jam jar some fourth year had filled with fire and sold at an outrageous price. It was driving Lily mad; her hair was frizzing out almost as much as Hermione’s by the end of the month, and her all-time record for confiscating badly charmed jars (jars that burned the hands, or jars that shattered with the heat of the flames) was a whopping fifty-seven in one day. Despite her instincts, it was somewhat of a relief to know that some other Prefect was handling it. She’d snap and snarl at people being idiotic in the Common Room, or if someone tried to sell a first year bootleg warming charms right in front of her eyes, but it was Lily’s or Lupin’s job, not hers, and she had homework for her sixth year cores to turn in. As the term wound closer towards its end, she started spending more and more time in the library to get her work done, and as the holidays approached, Lily and Mitzy started to join her. Alice too, sometimes, though as Alice was a Hufflepuff she tended to stick close to her Common Room by the kitchens. She was dreadfully shy, was Alice Crouch.

Or, Hermione thought, the third time Alice squeaked and bolted at the sight of Slytherins, she was terrified of being seen by anyone. Sometimes she tried to ask Alice about her cousin Barty. This never really received a reaction other than Alice pinking up and changing the subject. After a few fairly awkward stabs in the dark, Hermione let it be. Barty Crouch, Jr. was younger than her and Alice—in third year, Alice said—and they didn’t seem particularly close. Any further questioning would appear very odd indeed.

The second Quidditch match of the season, Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw, came and went with a Ravenclaw win and no incident, and after that, the whole school seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. It seemed—though Hermione had secret fears, ones she nursed in the dead of night—that the corruption of Abernathy Corner had been a one-off, and whoever had cast the Imperius Curse (though the Hogwarts rumor mill was hard at work, and theories ranged from _he was Imperio’d_ to _he was someone else under the influence of Polyjuice_ to _Abernathy Corner is a secret Death Eater_ ) had left the castle with the rest of the crowd for the first Quidditch game of the season. Even as everyone else relaxed, though, the Gryffindor first years stuck to her like glue. As Hermione was usually sitting with Lily and Mary, or studying in the library with Lily, this meant that all three of the Gryffindor first years—all Muggleborn, and all scared out of their minds—were almost always with a prefect. It also meant they joined the dueling practice sessions, and while they were much too young to have adequate control for any spell save _Expelliarmus_ , Hermione made sure they could, at least, cast that.

Hermione’s popularity for saving Lucinda Nakama—Hermione still doubted this, as two professors _and_ Snape had been present and it was more than likely the distraction, and not her Disarming Charm, that had stopped Abernathy Corner, but nobody would be told otherwise—lasted all of three days. By the third day, Hermione had grown so tetchy and irritable any time someone asked her to recount it _again_ that she wound up hexing Dane Fawcett through the Shield Charm that Professor Iqbal had conjured in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and he had to go to the hospital wing. She’d lost all fifteen points she’d garnered for their duel in her first class, and was told rather firmly to _watch how much power you put into spells, young lady_ , but it at least meant that the entire school was too petrified of her to say one word about it.

In fact, the only people who _didn’t_ seem to want to speak to her were James, Sirius, and Peter Pettigrew. If she came into a room, Sirius left it, and, often, so did James. It did not stop Lupin from coming to their dueling practice sessions, but he often did not spend much more time with them, choosing instead to retreat to whatever corner of the room Sirius and James had chosen to sulk in and talk with them in low tones. Hermione did not blame him for this, she thought one night, putting the point of her quill through her parchment—they were, after all, his first real friends—but she would have thought they’d given it up by now.

“Ignore them,” Lily said one night, as James and Sirius threw increasingly dark looks at her from the other side of the Common Room. Next to Lily, Mary moved a knight in her game of Wizard’s Chess with Lucinda Nakama. “They’re idiots.”

“It’s _fine_ ,” said Hermione. “It’s not like we were friends anyway.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “They’ll get over themselves eventually. Just keep an eye on your socks before then. Once when they were angry with Esme, our Prefect our first year, they turned all her socks into beetles. I’m still not quite sure how they did it.” Grudgingly, she said, “I suppose it was Potter. He’s not a _complete_ berk when it comes to Transfiguration.”

Hermione bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. “I think the Lake just froze over,” she said, and pulled her essay closer to herself.

“Stuff it,” said Lily. “He’s still an awful bully.”

“The Lake froze over?” Lucinda pushed her glasses up her nose, peeking at them. “Do they let us skate on it?”

“The Lake usually isn’t _that_ frozen until February, but Hagrid has skates in his shed,” said Lily. Hermione nearly poked the quill through her parchment again, and bent her head to her Ancient Runes essay on Sumerian. She’d spent all the year so far without speaking to Hagrid once, trying to avoid making herself too miserable to function, but sometimes if someone mentioned him without warning she flinched. “We can ask him once the ice is thick enough.”

When she lifted her head again, she realized Lupin was watching her. He looked away very quickly, and said something to Peter.

They were edging closer to the end of November—and, judging by Lupin’s increasing paleness and his sudden disappearance into the hospital wing on the eighteenth, just passing the full moon; Hermione made a mental note to find a lunar calendar to keep a better eye on it—when they had their first snow day. Drifts clambered the walls of the castle almost up to thirteen feet—mostly because Hagrid, in his overenthusiasm for shoveling the stuff, tossed it at the windows—and the first years immediately started a snowball fight on the sloping hill down to the greenhouses, Emmeline Vance, the Head Girl, supervising with white dappling her hair. Hermione had planned to stay in the common room all day—she did not do well with cold—but Lily, determined, had bundled her up in two scarves and a pair of mittens and dragged her down to the Quidditch pitch so they could watch Mary practice. It was the first time Hermione had been down to the pitch since she’d come to Hogwarts, and though it ached, it did not ache as much as it could have. She rubbed at the mark on her chest, and wondered if that meant she was doing better.

“Oh!” It was Alice, curled around what looked like a mug of steaming chocolate and sitting with Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. “Hello, you two!”

Hermione kept her face straight as Lupin looked at her, anxiety creasing the space between his eyebrows. He looked absolutely wretched, still; there was a long, still-scabbed gash on his jaw that stretched from his ear almost to his chin, and a split in his eyebrow that looked as if someone had punched him. She wondered, yet again, how in hell he’d ever kept being a werewolf a secret for so long without Wolfsbane, with his face all gashed like that once a month. He’d said, when she’d been younger, that the Marauders kept him from hurting himself, gave him a pack, but—this must be better, she realized. Compared to what he’d been before. Her worry leapt ten storeys. Next to Lupin sat Peter, who studied Hermione very closely, his somewhat watery blue eyes narrowed as if he was thinking about something.

“’lo,” said Lily, and clambered up onto the benches to drop down next to Lupin. “I can guess who _you’re_ here for, Alice.”

“Shut up,” said Alice, turning a bright pink. Peter also flushed, and looked hard at his feet for a while as Alice rolled her eyes at Lily. “I like Quidditch.”

Lupin struggled to keep his face straight. He caught Hermione’s eye over Lily’s shoulder and grinned before looking back at the book on werewolves he had open on his lap. They’d heard enough about Frank Longbottom in dueling practice to know that it was not Quidditch that had pulled Alice Crouch out on to sit in freezing wind with snow falling down the back of her cloak.

“You can admit it,” said Lily. “Truly. He’s very nice, you know.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” said Alice, with rare airiness. Up in the air, someone—Hermione had a sneaking suspicion it was Sirius—shouted “ _BLITHERING FUCK!_ ” and went after a figure that was clearly distinguishable as James Potter. They whipped around the stadium, one of them laughing like a maniac. Hermione did not need to know. “Hermione, cocoa?”

“Thank you,” said Hermione, and waited for the glass mug to be filled and passed down—Alice to Peter, Peter to Lupin, Lupin to Lily, and Lily to her—before curling her numbing fingers around it. Alice had clearly cast a Warming Charm on the cocoa; it was steaming thick in the snowy air, and the bones of her fingers started to ache at the warmth of the mug. “How long have you lot been sitting out here?”

“Too long,” said Peter, at the same time Alice said, “Not very long, only an hour or so.” They looked at each other, and then Lupin rolled his eyes.

“Alice doesn’t feel the cold like a normal person.” 

“Shut up, Remus,” said Alice tartly.

“Neither does Remus,” said Peter, and then turned a bit grey as Lupin stepped on his foot. The only reason Hermione noticed was because she’d come to abrupt attention, almost in spite of herself, wondering if she could get away with hitting Peter Pettigrew. Since Lupin _and_ Lily were sitting between her and her target, it was doubtful. Thankfully, neither Lupin nor anyone else seemed to notice her reaction. Lupin didn’t even blink. He smiled, a bit lazily, even as the corners of his eyes grew tight.

“I’m Welsh. Grew up on the cliffs. We don’t feel the cold.”

Hermione blew steam off the top of her cocoa. Up above them, Frank Longbottom shouted “ _SIRIUS, YOU MANGY SHIT, HIT THE BLUDGER, NOT THE CHASERS_!”

“Honestly I don’t know how Gryffindor wins at all,” said Lily with a sigh, as up above them, Sirius shouted, “ _STOP BEING A KILLJOY, FRANK_!” “You’d never think they were this idiotic if you saw them during an actual _game_.”

“Frank calls it getting their sillies out,” said Lupin, and went back to his book. He’d spelled it to keep the snow off, Hermione noted. “They care too much about the team to pull this in the middle of a real game, but they enjoy flying too much to not act like idiots during practice.”

“Care too much about the Cup, more like,” said Lily darkly. “They’ve both been doing this for three years, you’d think they’d have figured it out by now—”

Hermione tuned them out. She’d brought her book out with her— _The Dark Arts Outsmarted,_ one of the books that she remembered from DA meetings but a much newer and fresher copy, published only a year before—but now that she was sitting out here, in the chill, with snow falling on her hair and patterning her gloves, it seemed disrespectful to open it. The Quidditch pitch was a brilliant, glistening white, ice dappling the railing in long spikes. Even the sight of some Chaser—judging by the dark hair, probably James—bolting towards the ground at a nauseating speed didn’t disturb the beauty of the winter snow.

“I wish he wouldn’t do that,” said Peter fretfully, when James pulled out of his steep dive with only a few meters to spare. “Makes me sick to watch.”

Hermione, thinking of Harry pulling off—whatever that wonky thing was—shuffled the pages of her book in silent agreement. Even if James _was_ an absolute prat, she didn’t want to see him spattered like roadkill on the freshly fallen snow.

“He knows what he’s doing,” said Lupin, though he, too, sounded a bit nervous. “…I think.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” said Hermione under her breath, and Alice, on Peter’s far side, snickered.

“Besides, he’s just showing off,” said Lupin, and went back to his book. “Probably noticed that—”

Lily made a noise like a steaming kettle.

“— _people_ turned up,” said Lupin smoothly. Hermione could not help noticing that he gripped the cover of his book very hard. His gloves were tattered. Three of his fingers had no covering at all. “ _People_ don’t usually come to watch.”

Lily harrumphed, and wound her arms tight around herself, like she was wrapping herself in knots. Hermione gave Lupin a stern look, and then bumped Lily with her elbow.

“I think we should start working with this one in our next practice session,” said Hermione, and opened her book to the Blasting Curse. Lily gave her a look that said she knew exactly what Hermione was doing, but bent her head over the book anyway, the golden bobble on the top of her Gryffindor cap dropping snow onto the page. On Lily’s other side, Lupin leaned over too, to get a better look at the page. “It’s more advanced, but it’s—I think it’d be useful in a fight.”

“I don’t know,” said Lily doubtfully. “If that went wrong we could really hurt someone.”

“We can practice on boards or something,” said Hermione, hating that she couldn’t offer up the Room of Requirement. She had no reason to know about it in this world, but it’d been _so useful_ for the DA; the last time she’d learned Blasting Curses she’d had pillows to blow up. “Or we can ask Professor Iqbal to help us find something—”

“Maybe.” Lily leaned back, tapping her thumb against her chin. “Or—”

She froze. Her eyes had gone over Hermione’s head, towards the stairs down to the pitch. Through the snow, a dark-robed figure had appeared at the far end, pausing there and then waiting without a word. Lily stilled, looking at the figure. Then she stood. “Sorry,” she said, “be right back—sorry,” she added, when she stepped on Hermione’s foot on her way off the stand. Within a moment she’d vanished, taking the stairs. Hermione blinked, frowning.

“What was that?”

“Probably Snape,” said Lupin, and Hermione whipped her head around.

“Snape? Why?”

Lupin, Peter, and Alice all looked at each other.

“What?” said Hermione.

“They’re friends,” said Peter Pettigrew. His mouth twisted just a little, though she wasn’t sure if it was from actual disgust or because Lupin had trod on his foot again. Probably the former. “Have been since first year.”

“Really?” Hermione looked around again. There was Lily, her red hair a beacon, standing close to the dark-cloaked figure—not hooded, she realized, just with dark hair swinging around his jaw. It _was_ Snape, she could see it now, the way his shoulders hunched. And what was it he’d said in the library? _Did Evans put you up to this?_ Up to trying to be friendly? “How?”

“They grew up in the same neighborhood,” said Lupin, and Hermione had to curl both hands very tight around her mug to keep from dropping it. Alice wasn’t paying attention. “Came to school together.”

Hermione thought of all the times Snape— _Professor_ Snape, not this Snape—had bullied Harry, bullied _her_ , her and Ron and Neville, treated Harry _terribly_. She could not square that in her mind. _Professor Snape, Lily Potter’s friend? And yet he’d treat her son like—_

Maybe it’d been different in her world, she thought, watching. Lily and Snape turned, and vanished from sight. Maybe they’d hated each other.

“You didn’t know,” said Lupin, softly. Hermione looked at him, and then away.

“She didn’t mention it, no.”

“I thought you were all mates,” said Peter suddenly. Hermione looked over at him, and he quailed. Only a little, though. He straightened his shoulders, looking at her. “I thought you and Lily and Snivellus were all mates. Why else would you defend him?”

“I don’t have to be someone’s friend to defend them from false accusations, Peter,” said Hermione in a frosty voice. “Just because _you four_ don’t like him doesn’t mean I’m going to let you accuse an innocent person of using the Imperius Curse.” 

Peter went white again. “Then—then it’s true?” he said. “Corner was under the Imperius Curse?”

Hermione bit her tongue.

“Come off it, Pete,” said Lupin. “Corner’s a bit of a git, but he’s not a bastard. He wouldn’t torture anyone if he wasn’t being controlled by someone.”

“I suppose,” said Peter, and looked at his trainers. They were thin, she thought. Wet through. There was a hole near one of the laces. His feet must have been freezing. When he noticed her looking, he turned blotchy red, and tucked his feet closer under his winter cloak. Clearing his throat, he added, “My dad says that more and more people have been—have been hit with the Imperius Curse. Done things. Killed people.”

“ _Peter_ ,” said Lupin through his teeth, and gave her another darting look. Between the two boys, Alice seemed to have frozen; she squeezed the jug of cocoa in her gloved hands, staring not at Frank, but at the railing in front of her, her shoulders stiff and her hands shaking. Hermione looked at them, one, two, three, and then she remembered. _Right. My parents. They’re “dead.”_

“It’s all right,” she said, feeling brittle. “The people who—they weren’t Imperio’d. They just reckoned Voldemort has the right idea about Muggleborns.”

Saying the name did not make things any better. Peter squeaked like his Animagus form, turning a ghastly white. Alice swayed on the bench. Even Lupin flinched, the new gashes on his face standing out a garish blood red against his pale skin, slashing between his freckles like canyons.

“Oh for goodness _sake_ ,” said Hermione. Her voice shook a little. “I _know_ no one says the name, but—but being scared of a _name_ is ridiculous. He’s—he’s an evil, horrible, _monstrous_ wizard, but he is a wizard, and—and being scared of his _name_ is—is—”

She couldn’t think of the right thing to say.

“Saying the name can get you killed,” said Peter, white to the lips. “If—if the wrong people heard you, it could—they don’t like people saying his name.”

“The only people on the pitch that day were students, professors, and—and people’s families,” said Lupin. He rubbed a trembling hand over his mouth. “If—whoever—whoever used the Imperius Curse on Corner had to have been a student, or a professor, maybe—if they heard you use the name—”

“Well, they haven’t yet,” said Hermione, and cracked her book again. “And until someone _actually_ tries to kill me for saying the blasted name, I’m going to keep doing it. I _refuse_ to be intimidated by a _name._ Fear of a name increases the fear of the thing itself.”

She tried to read, she really did. It was just very difficult with all three of them staring at her like she’d suddenly grown three heads. Hermione slammed her book shut, and scowled at them. Her hair was throwing sparks again.

“ _What_ ,” she snapped.

“You’re either mad,” said Peter, somewhat awed, “or brilliant, or—or have a bloody death wish.”

“Three,” said Alice. “All three.”

Lupin didn’t say anything. He just looked at her for a while, until the slightest smile hooked the corner of his mouth. Flustered, Hermione stared down at the cover of _The Dark Arts, Outsmarted,_ unsure of what to say.

“I think they’re wrapping up,” said Peter after a second or two. “Snow’s getting too thick.”

The Gryffindor Quidditch team was, in fact, aiming for the ground. In an odd way, a curl of disappointment flickered up her throat. It was nice out here, in the calm, quiet snow—well, quiet so long as Sirius wasn’t making too much noise—listening to the _thwack_ of a Bludger against the bats or someone cheering as they put a Quaffle through the hoop. It reminded her of home. Peter stood, and Alice followed almost immediately, Reducing her mugs and tucking them all back into a pillowcase Hermione hadn’t noticed her sitting on.

The snow was coming down thicker, now, and visibility was getting worse. Lily and Snape’s footprints had already been covered. Peter led the way, his too-short cloak flapping around his ankles. Hermione lagged at the back, wondering if she ought to go and find Lily. She supposed Lily would be safe enough with Snape, if they _were_ friends. She thought back to her first day of classes, to the boy in the dark cloak on the steps of the Entrance Hall as she’d talked to Lily, and ignored the churning of her stomach.

“You all right?” said Lupin, as they slogged their way back up through the drifts towards Hogwarts.

“Hm?” Hermione, who was focused on carving out a path with heat coming off her wand, almost didn’t hear him. “Oh. Yeah, I’m—yeah. I’m fine.”

“Only—” He drew his own wand, cast a spell of his own, Levitating the snow and dumping it to the side with a surprisingly loud _fumf_. “Just—I lost—my mam died. Beginning of the year.”

Hermione looked at him. Her mouth had gone a little dry. Lupin’s nose and cheeks were chapped red from the cold, and his motheaten cap had a hole in it; some of his hair was poking through. He didn’t meet her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, and he stole a glance at her before lifting another lump of snow with his wand, and tossing it off the path.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Now. But—it took a while. She was—she wasn’t killed or anything, she was ill, had been for a long time. I know it’s—not the same as what happened to you, but if you need to—if you want to talk about it…”

He trailed off, awkwardly. A warmth swelled in Hermione’s ribs that had nothing to do with the charms she’d cast on her cloak. In that moment she was so ridiculously fond of Remus Lupin that she probably would have kissed his cheek, if he wouldn’t have panicked at the very idea of it. Instead, she reached out and squeezed his elbow, just a little, before saying, “Thanks, Remus.”

The name tasted a little strange on her tongue. Not bad, exactly. Just a little strange. She supposed she would get used to it. Remus stole a little look at her through his lashes, and then looked up the path again, towards the castle, where Peter, Alice, and Lily were all waiting. “Yeah,” he said, softly. “Whenever. All right?”

She squeezed his elbow again, and forged ahead through the snow. He caught up with her in three long strides, and they took the stairs up into the entrance hall together. And later, when Sirius and James seemed content to ignore her on the other side of the room, Remus gathered his books and carried them over to the couches to join her and Lily, sitting on the floor with his back to the couch and bumping his elbow into Hermione’s leg as he scribbled his essay.

 _Friends,_ she thought. Not the same friends. But still, friends. 

.

.

.

Hermione couldn’t prove it, but she had the feeling that Remus had talked to the other Marauders, because within the week, they were acting just like they had before Abernathy Corner had been Imperio’d. She was getting the distinct impression that boys were, unfortunately, the same no matter what era they grew up in. James and Sirius’s definition of an apology seemed to be just—starting to speak to her again, or at least not blatantly ignore her, without commenting on the long period of silence. Not that they’d ever been close before—it was still hard for her to see James laughing when he looked so much like Harry—but at least walking into the Common Room didn’t feel like walking into enemy territory any longer.

Peter also caught her in the Great Hall one morning to ask if it was all right for him to join dueling practice. Hermione, who now distinctly felt like she was becoming a babysitter for half of Gryffindor, could not think of a reason to say no that did not include things that had not yet happened, and so on Mondays and Wednesdays, when James and Sirius were off at Quidditch practice, Remus and Peter joined her, Lily, Alice, and the three Gryffindor first years in one of the large classrooms off the Entrance Hall to practice hexing each other.

Peter, to her shock, was not actually a bad wizard. She’d rarely paid attention to him in class, and he was nervous and twitchy, enough that half the time his spells would go awry if he was watched, but, like Alice—like Neville—he was actually more than half-decent at magic when he felt comfortable. Honestly, it frightened her a little. While it made sense when she thought about it—no wizard who could teach himself to become an Animagus could be lacking in talent—it also sunk in, slowly, that this might have been why Voldemort had decided to recruit him. He had quick reflexes and an uncanny sense of timing, and it worried her.

They were a good week and a half into December and Hermione was itching for a pair of knitting needles (she’d not yet plucked up the courage to go down to the kitchens, had no reason to know how to get in, but she was fairly desperate to help the elves _somehow_ , and hats was the only thing she’d been able to come up with) when Sirius flounced in. He’d had detention that day—he’d done something in the fifth year Transfiguration class that had Lily steaming about it even a week later, though no one could quite tell Hermione what had happened—and he looked wretched; his hair was all tangled at the back and full of dust, and his nice, expensive robes were drenched in soot.

“What the hell happened to you?” said Remus from the floor. He tended to study with all his books spread out around him, which usually meant he sat on the floor with his shoulder bumping into Hermione’s knee. It was companionable, and she wasn’t worried about him trying to sneak a look up her skirt, so she’d not yet had to kick him for it. Sirius sighed, explosively, and flung himself onto the other end of Hermione’s sofa.

“Filch had me cleaning the fireplaces in the Great Hall. _Without magic._ ” Sirius scoffed, and raked a hand through his hair. Hermione seized her scrolls and moved them out of the way before he could get soot and grime onto them. “I’m not going to have clean nails for a _month_ —”

“Get off the sofa, Sirius,” said Hermione, but he of course ignored her.

“And I have to go back tomorrow and do the other one,” he said, with another loud sigh. “Prepping for the Yule Ball—though _why_ the fireplaces need cleaning when they’re just going to get all sooty again is beyond me—”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” said Lily primly. “I’m glad you’re doing it. After all, if you’re going to act like a bag of cunts, you should reap the rewards.”

“Thanks, Lils,” said Sirius through his teeth. Lily beamed at him, her smile pure venom, before looking back at her Transfiguration book. Hermione, however, had stilled. She’d forgotten, in wake of the attack on Lucinda Nakama and everything else, that there was—she bit back a laugh—a Yule Ball to think about. She’d already written to tell Marlene and Magda that she would be coming back to Russet House for Christmas. Which, she supposed, would have been what she would have done even if she _had_ remembered. It wasn’t as if she’d had particularly good experiences with a Yule Ball, and she didn’t have anyone she wanted to go with, anyway.

“—taking you, then, Evans?” said Sirius, and Hermione shook her cobwebs away. “Snivellus?”

Lily scowled at him. “None of _your_ business, Sirius Black.”

“It _is_ ,” said Sirius. “I still can’t believe you’re friends with that slimy git, he’s Darker than _my_ family and that’s saying something—”

“Sev is _not_ a Dark wizard,” said Lily, and slammed her textbook shut, shoving it back into her bag. “So just _lay off him for once_ , Black!”

“I’ll lay off him when he lays off me!”

Lily did not dignify this with a response. Instead, she stormed up the stairs, slamming the door to the fifth year girls’ dormitory behind her. Hermione gave Sirius a foul look.

“Just because _you’re_ in a bad mood, Sirius, doesn’t mean you get to treat people that way.”

“Come off it, Granger, he’s a _Slytherin_ —”

“So’s your brother,” snapped Hermione, and when Sirius opened his mouth to reply, she said, “ _Scourgify_.” The yip he made when the bubbles filled his clothes was distinctly dog-like, and he sprang up from the sofa to the raucous laughter of everyone in the Common Room, dancing as if he had ants in his pants instead of a cleaning charm. Hermione calmly gathered her things, and followed Lily up the stairs.

Mary was out—Hermione had the distinct impression that Mary had found a girlfriend, though who, and which House she belonged to, was still up for debate—so it was only Lily in the circular dorm room. She’d flung herself onto the bed, her hair coming down from her high ponytail in a series of messy tendrils, her face buried in her pillow and her shoes still on. Hermione put her bag on the top of her second-hand trunk, and came around to the side of Lily’s bed that had her book and water glass on it, perching on the edge of the mattress. She didn’t know how to handle _girl problems_ —not like Mary did—but when she touched the tips of her fingers to Lily’s shoulder, Lily turned her head. Her nose was pink with suppressed tears.

“I _hate them sometimes_ ,” said Lily, in a thick voice. Hermione drew one leg up onto Lily’s bed, and then the other, toeing off her shoes before crossing her legs like a yogi.

“They’re prats, yes.”

Lily crammed her face back into the pillow. Her voice came out muffled, “They just—they just— _right_ from the start—he never did _anything_ to them—he just—defends himself—it’s—they’re— _bastards_ —”

Hermione rubbed her back, as soothingly as she could.

“He _never did_ _anything to them_.” Lily turned her head again, her voice coming through clear. “Not—not at the beginning. And—sometimes—sometimes he does _stupid shit_ with the other Slytherins, but they’re always picking fights with each other, the whole lot of them, Potter and Sirius and—and Sev and Avery and Mulciber, I don’t know _why_ he talks to them—”

“Sirius?”

“ _Severus_ ,” said Lily. She shut her eyes. “I keep telling him—I keep telling him it _doesn’t matter_ he’s in Slytherin but he keeps talking to those—those perverted _bastards_ down in the dungeons and he _says_ he’s not friends with them and then I see them all laughing together and I don’t know what to _do_ —”

Hermione had the distinct feeling she’d stepped on a puddle thinking it was an inch deep and wound up sinking down to her hips. She patted Lily’s shoulder again, carefully.

“I just wish he’d—” She hiccupped, and to Hermione’s horror, Lily began to cry. She scrubbed the tears off her cheeks with the back of her hand. “God, _fuck,_ he spends all his time with—with _Death Eater wannabes_ and then—and then he acts like nothing is _wrong_ and I keep telling him he’s _better than that_ and he won’t listen and then I come up here and Potter and Sirius and Peter all have a go at him for being a Slytherin and—and being p-poor and half-blood and I don’t know what to _do_ —”

“Hey,” said Hermione, and then did what she would have done with Harry, or Ginny, or Luna. She lay down on the bed next to Lily and she pulled her into a hug. Lily let out a gasping noise, like she’d been hit with a curse, and then began to cry in earnest, hiccupping sobs that rattled into Hermione’s ribcage. Tears and snot dribbled onto Hermione’s jumper. Hermione ignored it, blinking back blurry vision—she _hated_ that she cried when other people did, hated that it was automatic, Lily _did not_ need her crying right now too—and pet Lily’s hair as best she could, ignoring that her leg was twisted awkwardly up underneath her and that Lily’s elbow was jamming into her ribcage. She was, she decided, going to _murder_ Sirius Black.

 _That’s what put you here in the first place, isn’t it, letting Sirius get killed_ , said a nasty voice in the back of her head.

 _Oh, piss off_ , she thought, with rare pithiness.

Lily cried and cried. After a while, it went from raucous sobs to weeping, the kind of weeping that Hermione had done herself a time or two when she’d been fighting with Harry or Ron—long, distraught, half-stifled wails of someone who’d been hiding frustration and pain for much longer than anybody realized. Hermione wondered if she’d ever mentioned it to _anyone_ , how angry she was, how scared. Hermione stroked her hair, and waited until the weeping faded to hiccups, and the hiccups to ragged breathing, before Lily finally stirred.

“God,” said Lily. She would not look at Hermione. “God, sorry. I didn’t—”

“It’s okay.”

Lily sat up. Her face was bright red, her nose blotchy and swollen, eyes puffy with tears. Hermione found her wand—somehow it’d fallen onto the floor—and tapped the tip of it to the snotstain on her shirt before casting a silent charm over Lily to clear the swelling. Lily closed her eyes, and though they were red when she opened them again, there was no longer any clear evidence that she’d just spent the better part of half an hour sobbing her heart out.

“Thanks,” said Lily thickly.

“I had to learn,” said Hermione. She ignored the sad look Lily gave her. “I’ll teach you later.”

Lily coughed out a laugh. “Thanks.”

An odd silence fell. Hermione fluffed the ends of her hair, unsure of what to say. She’d never really had enough friends to be caught between two sides before—well, she had when Ron had decided Harry had cheated his way into the Tournament, but it wasn’t quite like this—and—well—she really didn’t know how to ask, or what she could even tell Lily to make her feel better. _Boys are prats_ somehow didn’t quite cover it.

“He didn’t used to be—” Lily stopped, and drew a deep breath. “Sev’s the one who told me I was a witch. He—his family lives a few streets over from mine, different neighborhood, but—but he saw me playing with my sister when we were little, and he realized I was doing magic. He’s the one who—”

She stopped, like she couldn’t put it into words. Hermione nodded. She thought she understood. It was like—it was like Snape had taken the role of Professor McGonagall introducing _her_ to magic, drawing her wand and turning her parents’ coffee table into a lamb and back again. There was a special place in Hermione’s heart for Minerva McGonagall, and there always would be. She was the person who had brought her to the magical world. She was the one who told her that what she was doing wasn’t madness. That she wasn’t a freak. That there were people like her. That she had a _home_.

Hermione put her hand to Lily’s back, and rested it there. She thought of Mo, and Mo’s face when she talked about Reg over the summer, and wondered, with a sensation that felt like someone had sliced the bottom out of her stomach, if she’d severely misjudged Slytherins all this time.

“But he keeps—” She drew a deep breath, and let it out. “I know—I _know_ he’s in Slytherin. I don’t think it should matter. Houses shouldn’t matter, it’s—it’s stupid, it’s all rich people politics, all of it, just—pureblood, halfblood, Muggleborn, it doesn’t _matter_ , but people keep talking about it like it defines you, keep—keep defining people by their Houses like being in Slytherin makes you bad and being in Gryffindor makes you good, and I’m so _fucking sick of it_ , but Sev keeps—he keeps talking to people I _know_ think I’d be better off dead, and I can’t—I can’t get him to understand that he shouldn’t talk to them. That they’re _creeps_ , bigoted—awful creeps, and I just—all I can do is be there, for him, when he needs me, and—and he’s my best friend, has been for a long time, but I don’t—I don’t know what to do for him, I don’t know how to change his mind, and then _Sirius_ comes in or—or _Potter_ —” She spat the name. “—and acts like he’s shit on their shoes because he’s a Slytherin and because he studies magic people think is _Dark_ and it gets me so angry I—”

Lily stopped. She’d been picking at her fingernails throughout, peeling off her pale yellow nail polish. Chips of it spattered the stone floor beside her bed.

“I don’t—” Hermione took a breath, and released it. “You can’t—make someone realize something. I think. You just—you have—you have to be there for them. That’s all you can do.”

Lily lifted one shoulder in an odd little shrug. She sighed.

“You don’t think Avery or—or Mulciber would hurt you?” Hermione rubbed her back, trying not to speak above a murmur. “For—for being friends with Sna—Severus?”

“More likely they’d hurt _him_ ,” said Lily. “It’s why—why we don’t talk in front of people anymore. He told them he stopped talking to me a year ago, to keep me safe. After—after that Muggleborn family got killed in—in Cokeworth. Not our neighborhoods, but not far, either. And—and I understood why, I _understand_ , we can’t really be seen together, not when everything is so—so batshit mad, but—”

“Yeah,” said Hermione.

“I just wish he’d—he’d stop talking to them. I wish—” Her face grew cold, angry, lip curling like a wildcat’s. “I wish I could just—”

“Yeah,” said Hermione again.

The ugly look vanished. Lily took another deep breath, wiped her eyes—they’d grown glossy again—and then forced out a laugh. “God, I’m so sorry. This is—this is _not_ the way I wanted to tell you Sev and me were friends.”

Hermione blinked. “You wanted to tell me?”

“Hermione, you’re the only one who’d—who wouldn’t look at me funny for having a Slytherin for a friend.” Lily turned, gripped her hand. “You _defended him_. After what happened to Lucinda. I—I know he still hasn’t thanked you, and he probably won’t, he’s a git, but—but d’you know how many people would have just blamed him? Half the school still thinks he did it even after Dumbledore cleared him—”

“Really?”

“You read too much,” said Lily fondly. “Half the school is still talking about it. They’re all scared shitless of him, that’s—that’s why he wanted to talk at the Quidditch pitch the other day, he doesn’t know what to do. But you stood up for him, to _McGonagall_. To Potter and Sirius. Of course I wanted to tell you. I just—thought—maybe—I dunno. That—that you’d think it was—”

Lily stopped herself again. Hermione looked down at the hand holding hers—pale with some freckles, long fingers, painted nails—and then squeezed back, holding on tight. She said, “He’s your friend, Lily. You trust him?”

“Absolutely,” said Lily. “I have since I was nine.”

“Then—then I trust you,” said Hermione, and she did. “If you trust him, then I trust you.”

Lily searched her face. Her eyes—green eyes, Harry’s eyes, but also _Lily’s_ , Hermione realized suddenly: just as green as Harry’s, same shape, same shade, but there were flecks of gold around the iris that Harry did not have, like flaws in an opal—fixed on Hermione’s. Then Lily made a noise that could only be termed a squeal, and flung her arms around Hermione’s neck. Hermione yelped, and almost fell off the bed. Only Lily seizing the back of her collar kept her from sliding down onto the floor by the chips of nail polish.

“Oh—oh, fucking cocktips, I’m sorry, I didn’t—your ribs—”

“My ribs are fine—”

“Sorry,” said Lily, grinning like a madwoman. She let go of Hermione’s shirt. “Just—you’re _brilliant_ , y’know that? Sodding brilliant.”

“Well, thank you,” said Hermione bemusedly. “I don’t know what my brains have to do with anything.”

“Stop being obtuse,” said Lily. Then: “Oh, god, I’m so sorry, I made you stop in the middle of your Potions essay, we can go back downstairs—”

“I am _not_ going downstairs to deal with a grumpy Sirius Black,” said Hermione. “I brought my things up. I can work up here. There’s a perfectly sensible desk by the window.”

Lily smiled, slow and shy. She said, “I’ll check yours when you’re done, if you like.”

Hermione smiled back. “I’d like that.” 

.

.

.

Now that she was paying attention, it seemed like the whole school was buzzing about the Yule Ball. Hermione couldn’t understand how she’d missed it in the first place; it seemed like everywhere she looked, it was her fourth year all over again, boys looking ready to kill themselves with anxiety and girls all bundled together in giggling groups, whispering in just-loud-enough voices about _oh, he’s going to ask you, Violet, I guarantee you_!

Hermione was, once again, reminded of how extraordinarily annoying it could be to be surrounded by randy teenagers.

The rules about the Yule Ball were clear. Only fourth years and up would be able to attend—no third year exception like there had been in her world—and so most students from first to third year would be boarding the train on the 22nd of December, while the rest of the school—at least, those who stayed—would be preparing for the ball on Christmas Eve. There was going to be a special Hogsmeade weekend the week before the 22nd, to give people the chance to go holiday shopping and pick up things they needed last minute.

“I wish I could go,” said Mo, a little longingly. She’d dropped by to check if Hermione had “let Mum know you’re coming back for Christmas,” and stuck around to chat. “It’s going to be beautiful. I saw the decorations as they were setting them up last year, and it was all icicles.”

“It’s a ball,” said Lily. “And you’ll be able to go next year.”

“That’s a whole _year._ ”

“Trust me,” said Mary. “After the first one, they’re all miserable.”

Mo harrumphed, and went off to go get her breakfast.

“Anyway,” said Mary, after Mo was out of earshot. “I’m going to have to get a set of wizard’s dress robes. Me mum keeps sending me pink— _things_. Awful. With _frills_.”

“Could be worse,” said Lily bracingly. “Could have bows on it.”

Hermione, who did not despise the color pink the way most people seemed to, said, “You’ll have to get to the robe shop early or other people will have ripped things to shreds.”

“Nah,” said Mary. “Blokes’re different. They don’t care. Most of ‘em will probably just throw on the first thing that fits and bolt back out again.”

“Who’re you taking, then?” said Lily, baring her teeth in a predatory grin. “Are we finally going to get to meet the girl you’ve been tousling up in broom closets?”

Hermione blushed, and turned the page of her book to pretend otherwise. While she knew that a certain number of fifth, sixth, and seventh years _did_ have sex—she’d caught enough couples in broom closets on her rounds to realize _that_ —it was still something she wasn’t sure she’d want broadcasted to the whole Gryffindor table. Mary, however, simply rolled her eyes.

“Never you mind,” she said, all mysterious. “You’ll see when we get there.”

“It’s not nice to keep secrets, _Mistress_ Mary,” said Lily.

“Lily, flower of my heart, you’ll just have to be patient and wait like everyone else,” said Mary, and then kissed Lily soundly on the top of her head before striding off whistling, her cloak thrown rakishly over one shoulder. Overhead, the owls started flying in for the post, bringing snow and sleet in with them; halfway down the table, Mathias Llewellyn shrieked fit to break her eardrums when a whole chunk of slushy snow fell right off the tail of a massive barn owl and down the back of his collar.

“Honestly,” said Lily, taking a letter from her parents from the small, beautiful screech owl that had landed in front of her. “I don’t have a clue what she thinks she’s doing, but she must fancy this bird, whoever she is, she doesn’t usually keep secrets—”

Hermione stopped paying attention. A ruffled, irritated looking horned owl—one of the school owls, it had the Hogwarts band around its right leg—had landed almost in her plate of toast and tomatoes, shaking snow off its wings so hard that some of its feathers came out with it. In its beak it held a small, embossed envelope, sealed with gold wax. Hermione took it with care—she’d finally written to Ted Tonks and had been waiting on his response for a few days, but she _highly_ doubted this was from him—and pushed her goblet of water forward for the horned owl to drink his fill.

“Oh,” said Lily, looking at the envelope. She looked slightly pained. “He’s finally trying to recruit you, too, then.”

“Who?”

“Professor Slughorn,” said Lily. Hermione glanced over Lily’s shoulder up at the High Table. Professor Slughorn was delicately scooping bits of egg up off his plate, quite careful _not_ to look at her. She turned the envelope over in her hand, and studied the calligraphic _Miss Hermione J. Granger_ inscribed across the front. “He has this—thing—where he likes to collect clever or well-connected students. We call it the Slug Club. I’m…guessing after the thing with Lucinda he wants you to come along.”

“Ah,” said Hermione. She’d wondered. Lily and Mary had mentioned it once or twice around Halloween, but other than that, it’d vanished from her memory. She’d had other things to consider.

“I’m in it,” said Lily, as if being in the Slug Club was a mark of high treason. “So’s Potter, of course—Sirius, Mary, Alice since she’s a Crouch. Loads of Slytherins. Sev usually comes, Slughorn’s very fond of him, and it keeps him away from home for Christmas so that’s always good—Sirius’s brother Regulus is almost always there, too, since he’s the Slytherin Seeker _and_ the second son of the House of Black, so usually it gets close to a punch-up by the end of the night—oh, and after Peter’s dad was promoted in the DMLE he was invited, but then he spilled punch all over Slughorn’s new robes and he didn’t get invited back. I think he was relieved, to be honest. Pete gets a bit nervous around strangers.”

The invitation inside the envelope was made of very expensive, very heavy cardstock, embossed with gold lettering. “A Christmas Eve lunch?” she read, and frowned. “I thought—isn’t the Yule Ball on Christmas Eve?”

“Yes, he gets very irritated about that, bless him,” said Lily. “He talks a lot about how twenty years ago the Yule Ball was on Christmas _Day_ and not Christmas _Eve_ and so it was perfectly reasonable for him to have his Christmas party one day, and then the Ball could be the next night, but then Dumbledore changed it a few years ago so the Yule Ball’s the same night for security reasons and he’s been in a huff ever since.”

“Ah, you’ve been invited to Slughorn’s Christmas shindig too, then, Granger?” said Sirius, and stopped by their bench to lean over her shoulder. “He even put out the fancy stock, he doesn’t bother with that for us anymore, just plain old parchment, _I would be very indebted if you could attend_ , et cetera, et cetera—”

“Good morning, Sirius,” said Hermione coolly. Next to her, Lily said nothing, loudly and pointedly ignoring Sirius. Remus and Peter were both standing behind Sirius, Peter with his nose in a book and his ears steadily reddening, Remus looking like he was having stomach cramps. He was looking thinner, she realized. “Remus. Peter.”

“’lo,” said Peter, and shoved his face deeper into his book.

“Reckon it’ll be interesting this year,” said Sirius, wading into the tension as if it were a sauna. “All the baby Death Eaters have gone—well, most of ‘em, Goyle and that lot all graduated last year, and Avery and Mulciber are too stupid to try anything on their own—so if it’s anything like the Halloween party there’ll be loads to see. Usually for Christmas Slughorn invites a bunch of people in his little _network_ , people from all over—he had a vampire a few years ago, or so Vance said, he might do it again this year—”

“I won’t go,” said Hermione, and put the card down on the table. “I’m going back to the McKinnons’ for Christmas, I’ve already written.”

“He won’t stop hounding you,” said Sirius grimly, and dropped onto the bench next to her. “Now that he can’t just ignore you cause you’re one more than his Muggleborn quota allows—”

“He does not have a _Muggleborn quota_ ,” said Lily, sounding scandalized. Clearly, this comment had been more than she could bear.

“You think he doesn’t when there’s never more than five Muggleborns in the club at any given time?” Sirius looked up at Lily, eyebrows weighing heavy. “Don’t be naïve, Evans. Sluggy might be better at hiding it, but he’s just as biased about blood purity as anyone other pureblood, he just thinks about it differently. Check with Khan, she didn’t get an invite this year and she’s over the moon about it. Probably,” he added to Hermione, “to make room for you.”

Lily jabbed her knife hard into the butter dish, and did not reply. Hermione’s stomach churned.

“Anyway, Granger—” Sirius patted Hermione’s shoulder. “He’ll never stop badgering you to come to one of his events if you turn him down nicely. Better to go to one, embarrass yourself on purpose, and never have to deal with it again.”

“Like that’s ever worked for you,” said Remus, half-smiling. “Last year you snuck in three bottles of firewhiskey, gave one to him as a Christmas present, used another to spike the punch, and then drank half the last bottle and threw up on his table, and he still invited _you_ back.”

“That’s because it was expensive whiskey I stole from my dad’s cabinet.” Sirius waved this off. “ _And_ he thinks he can put me to use, wants to keep both me _and_ Reg, figures he’ll have the set—”

It was the first time she’d ever heard Sirius mention his brother. Hermione could not help glancing over at the Slytherin table, at the thin, hunched form of Regulus Black eating his cornflakes.

“Anyway, if you go home, you’ll miss the ball, and that’s always a riot,” said Sirius. He picked up the card, and offered it to her again. “Or has no one asked you?”

“I wouldn’t care if anyone had,” said Hermione, and Sirius, for some reason, looked just a little triumphant. He glanced up at Remus, and then back at Hermione again as she said, “I’d still be going back to Cornwall. It just sounds like a lot of hassle. And—and the last thing I want is to fill some _quota_.”

Lily dropped a hand under the table, and squeezed Hermione’s knee, comfortingly.

“You could go with Moony,” said Sirius, and Remus’s cheeks and neck turned approximately the color of a tomato. Immediately, he looked up at the ceiling, as if the sleeting grey illusions at the top of the Great Hall were able to slaughter him on the spot. “He went alone last year, absolute wallflower, it was very sad—and Peter could go with Alice—”

“Sorry, Peter, Alice is going with someone,” said Lily, not looking up from her plate of eggs and beans. She still had not looked at Sirius once. “She told me yesterday.”

Peter seemed to wilt like a tiny flower. He looked down at his book, but his eyes did not move. He didn’t seem to be reading it anymore.

“Bad luck, Wormtail,” said Sirius bracingly, and looked back at Hermione again. Behind him, Peter inched through the gap between the tables, and went off towards the Entrance Hall. Hermione wished, fervently, that she could follow him. “You sure about this, Granger? Moony’s a nice bloke, I promise—gets a bit _snarly_ sometimes, but—”

“ _Sirius_ —” said Remus through his teeth, but Sirius ignored him. He seemed almost manic.

“Better than Prewett or _Snivellus_ any day of the week—”

“Can I speak with you, Sirius?” said Hermione, when Lily flinched. Behind Sirius, Remus had turned approximately the color of a brick wall. “Alone, please?”

“Wh—”

“ _Now_ ,” said Hermione, and seized him by the arm. Sirius, despite being taller and probably stronger than her, did not struggle; he complained the whole way out of the Great Hall, but he let her tug him along without fighting once, and when she found the nearest empty classroom and opened the door, gamely let her shove him inside and slam the door behind the two of them.

“Merlin, Granger, if I’d known you’d want to get me in an empty classroom so badly—”

“What on _earth_ is your problem?” snapped Hermione, and Sirius stopped. His eyebrows drew together. All at once, it was if he’d put on a mask; cool, elegant, sharply drawn Sirius Black, Heir to an Ancient and Most Noble House, and certainly _not_ the sort of boy who chased his friends around the Quidditch pitch for chucking snow at the back of his head.

“Nothing,” he said, his voice distinctly frosty. “What’s yours?”

“You need to let Lily alone about Severus Snape.”

Sirius’s Noble Heir mask slid off his face like oil. He scowled at her, his grey eyes going dark. “That’s none of your business, Granger.”

“Lily’s my friend,” Hermione snapped. “Just because you don’t like Snape doesn’t mean you should be giving her grief about it—”

“Snape is _dangerous_ , don’t act like you know _anything_ about this when you just came out of _nowhere_ a few months ago—”

“I’m not talking about _Snape_ —”

“You just said—”

“For Merlin’s _sake_ , Sirius, I’m talking about Lily!” She almost shook him. “I might not have known Snape as long as you have, but every time you talk about him or pick a fight with him, it’s not just _him_ you’re hurting. It’s _Lily_.”

“Every second she pretends he’s not going to turn on her is a second she’s in _danger_ ,” Sirius snapped. “She can’t see him for what he is, and considering _you_ were so quick to give him excuses about what happened to Lucinda I don’t think you can either—”

“Everyone knows that Abernathy Corner was _fine_ until he turned up on the Quidditch pitch—”

“You don’t know _half_ of what I know about the Imperius Curse, Granger, you can be going about your day like _nothing is wrong_ —”

That was true. But she set it aside for later. “ _Snape didn’t hex Abernathy Corner._ Snape was doing Arithmancy homework in the library. I was there from before the match started until you all came in, and he _never_ left the library.”

Sirius switched tracks so fast it made her dizzy. “That doesn’t mean he hasn’t done loads of other things—you’ve barely been here a term, Hermione, I’ve known that greasy git since first year, you have _no idea_ what he’s done, to me, to James, to _Remus_ —”

“And _you_ have no idea how much he means to Lily—”

Sirius sneered. “I have a pretty good one, actually—”

“Oh, because James fancies her?” snapped Hermione, and Sirius blinked. “It’s completely obvious, Sirius, he never takes his eyes _off_ her. I’ll bet half the time he mentions Snape it’s because he’s being a jealous prat—”

“Oi—”

“—and you might think you’re helping him look good in comparison to Snape, but trust me, it’s just hurting her and making her despise you both, so _lay off Snape_ before I turn your knees backwards and hex your tongue out of your skull!”

Sirius opened his mouth, and then the door opened. Professor Dorcas Meadowes stood in the threshold, one perfectly plucked eyebrow arched. Her hair was out of braids today, and under a scarf, frizzing out over the back of her neck like a thundercloud. Hermione snapped her mouth shut with an audible click of teeth, and folded her arms tight across her chest.

“Everything all right in here?” said Professor Meadowes, in a voice that said she’d heard most of the argument and was doing her level best to pretend otherwise.

“Perfectly _peachy_ ,” said Sirius under his breath, and slid past her out into the hallway. Hermione did not move. She kept her arms woven tight around herself, trying not to scream with frustration. She could only hope some of what she’d said had penetrated Sirius Black’s thick skull.

“Your pocket’s smoking,” said Professor Meadowes, and Hermione just about leapt out of her skin. Her cloak pocket was, indeed, smoking; the Orbis Sanguis had turned hot again, unnoticeable through the thick material of her hand-me-down sweater. When she tried to grab it, her fingers shrieked with pain.

“ _Damn,_ ” said Hermione under her breath, and upended her pocket. The Orbis Sanguis hit the floor with a clatter, skittering away under a desk. There was nothing she could do about the cloak—she’d learned _some_ household charms, but not many to do with burns in fabric, and the smell of scorched cloth was outrageous in her nose. “Damn, damn it—”

“Can I?” said Professor Meadowes. She waited for Hermione’s nod, and then pointed her wand at her now empty pocket. “ _Irrado_.”

The smell vanished almost instantly. When Hermione touched the fabric, it was smooth again, no singes. The Orbis Sanguis she left on the floor until it calmed down. She knew from experience no cooling charm would do a thing for it.

“What is it?” said Professor Meadowes curiously. Hermione swallowed.

“Um—just something I found in an old antique shop in—in France, it gets hot when I get upset—”

“Seems useful.”

“It was a gift for my parents,” said Hermione, inventing wildly. She dropped her cloak, hopefully hiding all the hands of the Orbis and the one that was, inevitably, pointing after the retreating Sirius. “So they’d know—how I was. Um—Professor, I’m—sorry, I didn’t mean to get so angry with Sirius—”

“You’re not in trouble, Miss Granger,” said Professor Meadowes, sounding amused. “Merlin, Morgana, and Mordred know that more than a few people have wanted to shout at Sirius Black a time or two.”

Hermione bit her lip, and prodded the Orbis with her shoe.

“Lovers’ quarrel?” said Professor Meadowes kindly, and Hermione yipped.

“I’d rather kiss a flobberworm.”

Professor Meadowes let out a loud crack of laughter, and grinned. “Sensible witch. Much more sensible than I was at your age. The pretty boys always wound up breaking my heart.”

The Orbis was cool enough to touch, now. It still stung when Hermione picked it up, but it didn’t burn her, and that was the most important thing. She kept it in her hand for now, leery of letting it burn her cloak again. One of the arrows, she realized, had turned a faint green, like copper that had been left too long out in the elements. She could not remember if it had been that color the last time she looked at it.

“Alice Crouch tells me you’ve been doing wonders with her dueling skills,” said Professor Meadowes, and Hermione looked up at her in surprise. Her scarf was patterned blue and gold, and it looked well-used; one of the corners was almost worn through. “She said you learned from a friend?”

“Ah…yes.” Hermione passed the Orbis from one hand to the other. “I—I did, yes.”

“Must have been brilliant, this friend.”

“He is,” said Hermione softly, and Professor Meadowes gave her a long, considering look.

“Did you ever consider making your practice group into a dueling club?”

Hermione blinked. She scrambled for words. “I—not really, I—Lily suggested it, but—but people don’t like me very much, I don’t think I’d be good at leading a club—”

“You might be surprised,” said Professor Meadowes. “The professors _do_ keep an eye on the students, you know. The Gryffindor first years feel safer with you around. All the first years do, really, though Nakama, Llewellyn, and Strider are Gryffindors, they’re talkative about it.”

“I don’t think I’d be very good at it,” said Hermione again, a little weaker this time. “I thought about it, but—but I don’t know if I’d have time to manage it, either, I’ve OWLs and sixth year courses—”

“Ah,” said Professor Meadowes. “Entirely understandable.”

“And I—” She stopped. Hesitated. “I was—part of a Defense club at—at Beauxbatons. My friends—I don’t know. I thought about it once or twice, but it was still too—”

She stopped.

“Too recent,” said Professor Meadowes. “Also entirely understandable. But—and I hope you’ll forgive me for being forward, Miss Granger—I think it’s something the school needs. From what I’ve heard from Alice, you understand better than most what lies outside the castle. Whatever your classmates think, making sure they get more practice will be an advantage.” Her lips pressed thin. “Especially considering the attack on Miss Nakama.”

That was true, too. Still. The only experience she’d had with a dueling club was the one run by Professor Lockhart, and that had been a _spectacular_ failure. Dumbledore’s Army had been different. Hermione fluffed her hair, thinking. “I—I don’t know where we would even practice—”

“We can clear out the Great Hall,” said Professor Meadowes, shrugging. “It’s been done before, for other clubs—I’ve checked—and I’m sure the Headmaster would be all right with it. As for targets, there are loads of suits of armor around the castle that’d be dying for a dustup, they get bored standing around looking menacing all the time.”

Hermione looked at Professor Meadowes, and considered. She’d never spoken to Professor Meadowes before now—she no longer took Muggle Studies, thanks to her blended fifth and sixth year schedule (which had frustrated her, because the Muggle world of the seventies was much different than the Muggle world of the nineties, and it would have been helpful) and so the only time she saw Dorcas Meadowes was in the Great Hall during breakfast or dinner. She knew Alice and Mary both liked her, and she knew that in her world, Dorcas had been murdered by Voldemort himself, but other than that, she was a relative stranger.

“It’s up to you,” said Professor Meadowes. “There wasn’t a dueling club in my time, either. Not that I wouldn’t’ve killed for one if I could have, but alas, interest was so low it was practically subterranean.” When Hermione blinked, she said, “It was before the war, you see. Well, just in the beginning stages. When everyone still thought it would be easily squashed, and nobody would get hurt.”

Hermione nodded.

“But if you _are_ interested, Granger, let me and Flitwick know, would you? He’d be delighted to supervise; champion of the dueling world for a while there, he was. And I’m sure many of the other teachers would be willing to sacrifice an evening or two of their time to keep an eye on things.”

Her mind churned. Hermione fluffed her hair again, and then said, “Is there a form I have to fill out?”

“Check with Longbottom, he has the lot stashed in a desk in the Head Boy’s dorm.” Professor Meadowes dropped her a wink. “Feel free to put my name as sponsor if you like.”

“Oh,” said Hermione, “but—”

“Well, I’ve class to teach,” said Professor Meadowes, and waggled her fingers. “Like I said, Granger, let me know! Stop by the staff room or by the Muggle Studies classroom when you get the chance.”

She was gone before Hermione could work out what to say.


	10. Christmas With The Cousins Crouch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EXTREME CW FOR: intrafamilial abuse (both explicit and referenced), mentions of STIs, chronic/debilitating illness, alcohol consumption, severe internalized ableism, internalized anti-Muggleborn nonsense, mentions of bullying, mentions of self-loathing, discussion of grief, parent-child disconnect.
> 
> This is the last chapter that I'll be posting this year!! Happy Christmas, everyone!!!

“Where the  _ hell  _ have you been?” said Remus through his teeth.

He’d finally found Sirius sitting at the base of the passage beneath the statue of the one-eyed witch, gnawing on a Sugar Quill. He’d skipped their morning classes—surprise, surprise; Sirius had a tendency to go to ground after an argument, like a weasel seeks a getaway tunnel—and it’d taken a good thirty minutes of Remus’s lunch hour to finally track him down. He’d been lucky— _ lucky, hah _ —that it was so close to the full moon; he wouldn’t have been able to catch Sirius’s scent leading to the statue, otherwise.

Sirius looked up at him, a bit lazily. His pupils were wide from the dark at the bottom of the statue. “Moony,” he said, and waved the bag of Honeydukes’ prizes. “Come and join the party.”

“You went to  _ Honeydukes? _ ” said Remus. “Are you  _ mad _ ? It’s the middle of the day—”

“James let me borrow his cloak,” said Sirius, and waved an idle hand. When Remus looked, he realized Sirius was sitting on the Invisibility Cloak. “Besides, I was out of Sugar Quills.”

“McGonagall’s going to skin you,” said Remus. “She already wasn’t best pleased with you for turning Snape’s face into a mushroom farm, and skiving off the day after you finish her detentions—”

“Oh, drop the Prefect act for ten seconds, would you?” said Sirius. “It’s giving me a headache. You haven’t said thank you.”

“ _ Thank you _ ? What for? Breaking Pete’s heart?”

Sirius grimaced. “That was unintentional. How was I supposed to know Longbottom finally sucked up the guts to ask her?”

“We don’t know it’s Frank,” said Remus automatically, but Sirius waved his hand again.

“Of course it’s Frank, she’d never say yes to anyone else.”

“Alice is nice, she might have—”

“Alice might be Alice,” said Sirius, “but she was raised by Bartemius Crouch; she probably has eight potential marriage contracts in the offing that could get buggered if she accepted a date from a nobody. She’d  _ never  _ date without Old Barty’s permission  _ unless  _ it was Frank.”

This was true. It was also another reason Remus was exhausted by purebloods. “If you say so.”

“Where’s Wormy?”

“Hiding in his bed in the dorms until class.”

Sirius grimaced again. “Shit. We’ll have to pull something tonight, cheer him up—”

“For fuck’s sake, Sirius—”

“Anyway,” said Sirius. “You haven’t thanked me for confirming Granger’s still free. For the Ball, I mean.”

Remus sputtered. “Wh—what does  _ that  _ have to do with the price of peas in Peebles?”

“Pete said you fancy her,” said Sirius, and began steadily demolishing a bar of chocolate that was as thick as two of his fingers put together. “Figured I’d make sure she hadn’t already said yes to someone else. So I asked for you. To make sure.”

Remus’s stomach dropped through the floor. “I,” he said, and stopped, because there was definitely a whiff of something down here that wasn’t chocolate. “Are you  _ drunk _ ?”

“Nope,” said Sirius, enunciating very carefully. “Only had a bit.”

All the fight went out of him. Remus sighed, and put his back to the wall of the tunnel, sliding down to sit next to Sirius at the base. Their trainers tangled, awkwardly, before Remus folded his legs up the way he needed to. He was getting much too tall after his latest growth spurt to sit comfortably down here anymore. “Christ, mate,” he said, and Sirius relaxed, knocking his head against the tunnel with a dull  _ thunk _ . “I could tell she bit your head off, but I didn’t think it was  _ that  _ bad.”

Sirius grunted, and went back to gnawing on the slab of chocolate. “Thanks for letting her do that, by the way. Woman’s a bloody harpy.”

“Like that would have made sense.” He put on a simpering voice. “ _ Oh, I could hear you two yelling, through the whole Great Hall, down a corridor, and behind a closed door, is everything all right in here? _ ”

“Git,” said Sirius.

Remus rolled his eyes at him. In the dim light, Sirius didn’t notice.

“She might be right, though,” said Sirius after a long moment. Water dripped further down the tunnel. “About Lily, I mean. Didn’t realize it bothered her that much. And  _ don’t  _ say I told you so, Remus, or I’ll kick your balls up through your teeth.”

Remus, who had opened his mouth to remind Sirius of exactly how many times he’d recommended they leave Snape alone, for precisely that reason, closed his mouth again.

“Alph’s sick,” said Sirius abruptly. He did not look at Remus. Sirius telling people important things was almost always half-hearted; he’d never look at you, never meet your gaze, certainly never give any hint that what he was telling you was significant. Remus thought it had something to do with the fact that his family seemed to beat all proper warmth and feeling out of each other; you had to keep your head down and your heart closed up to survive in the House of Black. It certainly explained a few things about Sirius. “He wrote a few weeks ago. They think it’s dragon pox.”

Remus’s guts clenched. Still, he didn’t say anything. If he said something, Sirius would probably lock back up again and retreat into his shell like a little snail, and then there’d be no getting through to him.

“Dunno how long he’s had it,” said Sirius. “Dragon pox can be dormant for months or years before it flares up. Healers think he’s probably had it ages, since his last partner died of it, and it’s just—been waiting until his system wore down to take hold.”

The chocolate broke with a great  _ snap  _ between his teeth, and then he offered it to Remus without a word. Remus took the chocolate bar, and did not eat any of it. He looked at the toes of his trainers instead in the dim light coming off of Sirius’s wand, wondering what to say.

“Uncle Alph’s not that old, but he’s always been fragile,” said Sirius. “He’ll probably die. Wanted to write me and say sorry. Like he needs to apologize for being  _ sick _ . Dunno when he’ll go, though, so he has time to set his will to rights and everything. Asked me not to tell anyone. ‘specially my mother, she’ll try to get all his things before he’s even in the grave.”

“Sirius,” said Remus quietly, and Sirius looked at him for just a moment before looking away again.

“Anyway,” he said, and dug in the bag of stolen Honeydukes product. “No way I’m going back for Christmas this year. He says he’s contagious.”

Sirius rarely spent the holidays with his immediate kin, though Remus had the vague impression that this was because Walburga asked him to stay away. Usually he’d stay at Hogwarts, though last year he’d gone to visit his great-uncle out on the Isle of Wight. Apparently Alphard had been much closer with the family originally, right up until he and Walburga had had some sort of fight and she’d banned both her children from seeing him. Sirius had probably been about seven. No matter what, Alphard was his favorite relative, the closest thing that Sirius had to a parent who was his actual blood kin, and losing the man to dragon pox—getting the news near  _ Christmas,  _ for Christ’s sake—would certainly explain Sirius’s wildly changing moods and hyperfixation on Severus Snape the last few weeks.

Remus’s throat closed off. He swallowed a few times, trying to get past the rock that seemed to have spontaneously formed in his esophagus. “Pads, I’m sorry.”

Sirius turned his face away. Neither of them, Remus thought, were inclined to examine the fact that out of the two of them, one had already lost a parent in the last year to illness, and around winter hols, too. He drew a breath, and freed it. There were days when he could talk about his mother. He hoped Sirius would understand that this was not one of them.

“Don’t look at me like that, mate,” said Sirius, and grinned. It was clearly faked, but Remus ignored it. “It’s not like  _ I’m  _ the one that’s dying anytime soon.”

“You have chocolate in your teeth,” said Remus, and Sirius kicked him in the calf.

“You’re such a bastard.”

They sat in quiet silence for a while, the kind of silence that came from knowing that the other knew all your darkest secrets, and you knew you could trust them to keep quiet about it. Up above, students passed the one-eyed witch, babbling about the Yule Ball. Remus stretched one leg out, trying to ignore the ache in his thighs from the cramped space.

“You do fancy her, then?” said Sirius gruffly. Remus couldn’t help it. Heat crept up into his cheeks again.

“I,” he said again, and then stopped.

He still had no explanation for why Hermione Granger smelled the way she did to him. He’d read every book in the library that he could find on werewolves, and found nothing; not a single hint of why a werewolf might meet someone that smelled  _ like that _ . That wasn’t entirely a surprise—there weren’t many studies on werewolves that didn’t involve people trying to figure out increasingly creative ways to kill them; werewolf culture wasn’t exactly a topic of discussion—but it had annoyed him to the point of drafting a letter to his father about it. Then common sense had kicked back in, and he’d tossed the letter in the fire, but still—he had  _ written  _ it.

He still went to check Tomes and Scrolls every chance he had, to see if they had new volumes in on werewolves, but at this point, there wasn’t much more he could  _ do _ . So he’d decided to be matter-of-fact. Hermione Granger smelled wonderful—more than any person he’d ever met—and it was just a fact of life. He wasn’t going to let it impact him overmuch.

But her scent, no matter how strong, could not take the blame for everything else. No scent, however strong, could make him want to talk to someone, or watch the back of their head in class to try and find different shades of brown in it, or make him want to smile back whenever they did, as if on reflex. He’s fancied girls before, and, for three memorably embarrassing months last year, Frank Longbottom—but—but not quite like this, not in this slow, creeping way, building almost without him noticing. He’d get distracted in class if she put her hair up, or chewed on her quill, or crossed her legs under her chair and drew attention to the shape of her ankles through her socks, delicately wrought like something handmade. She was clever and lovely and lonely and ferocious and so deeply sad it was already breaking his heart. He wanted to sit close to her, and talk to her, and maybe, someday, ask if it was all right to kiss her. But—

The scars across his chest, fresh from the end of the last full moon, throbbed, almost in time with his heart.

No. No. Hermione Granger wasn’t an option, the way nobody would ever be. He didn’t date or do anything with anyone for  _ this exact reason _ . There was no point in risking her finding him out and hating him, and he wouldn’t—would not—lie to her. There was a difference, he reasoned, by going on one or two dates to Hogsmeade with a girl that you thought was good-looking, and letting yourself fancy a girl so much that eventually you knew you would want to tell her your deepest and most awful secret, and he had a feeling which category she’d fall into.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Remus, keeping his voice even. “Either way.”

“Moony,” said Sirius, and reached out, touching his shoulder. He drew away quickly. “Mate, come on—”

“Don’t, Pads,” said Remus. “Honestly. It’s fine. I decided years ago. Safer not to tell anyone, anyway.”

Werewolves were monsters. Nobody gave a damn about monsters.

Sirius watched him for a while. In the dark, Remus could only make out the movement of his jaw as he bit off another chunk of chocolate, and chewed. “Well,” he said. “At least try and keep her from killing me, would you?”

“Only if you don’t deserve it.”

Sirius snorted. Then, lolling his head as if he were a marionette without a control spell, he turned his face to Remus. “You know Gideon Prewett talks about her in the locker room, right? I think he’s planning on asking her to the Yule Ball.” 

Something hit Remus’s stomach with all the force of a hydrogen bomb. He went very still for a long, horrific moment—the full moon scraped at him, and deep inside, the darkness that was Moony  _ snarled _ and clawed at his guts—before he said, “Oh.”

“Only,” said Sirius, “I don’t think she’d say yes to him.”

“Sirius,” said Remus, and set his jaw. “I  _ literally just said _ —”

There was a grinding from above, and they both froze. Remus relaxed only seconds later as the witch’s hump shifted, and light shone into the tunnel, blinding them. James always smelled of broomsticks and cedar oil, and with his senses as honed as they were at the moment it would be impossible to mistake him for someone else.

“What-ho, chaps,” said James, and slid down to join them at the bottom of the tunnel. He almost landed on Sirius’s guts, and  _ definitely  _ landed on Remus’s knees, so it was with a lot of kicking and thrashing and a “ _ for fuck’s sake, James _ ” that they all finally oriented themselves at the bottom of the tunnel, packed in like sardines. If Peter opened up the witch’s hump to join them, Remus thought darkly, he was going to kill him, and then James, and then Sirius for good measure. “Are we taking the day off?”

“No,” said Remus. “Sirius is going to the Hospital Wing so he doesn’t get detention again, because we  _ need him  _ to stay out of detention for another week.”

“Ah,” said James. “Right. The ball.”

“The ball,” said Sirius dolefully, and toasted them both with his second bar of chocolate before heaving his way to his feet to clamber back through the witch’s hump. “Be sure to write me a proper eulogy, boys, lest McGonagall severs my head from my slender yet manly neck.”

“ _ Dearly beloved Padfoot, _ ” said James, sounding appropriately mournful. “ _ All who knew him shall miss him desperately—most of all the girls he gave the clap— _ ”

Sirius accidentally-on-purpose kicked James in the head as he wiggled out of the passage.

“Git,” said James, and rubbed at his hair, grinning all the while. “Good on you for finding him, Moony. And my cloak. He didn’t ask.”

“I figured,” said Remus, and idly hexed a spider off the ceiling of the tunnel. He didn’t particularly like spiders. He knew, logically, they were helpful—ate flies and so forth—but something about the legs just made his guts twist up. It landed on the floor and curled up in death, a tiny fragment of an existence, and for some reason he felt abruptly guilty about it. Maybe it was the thought of Alphard Black, hanging in the tunnel like so much stale air. “He never asks.”

In the dim light from the tip of his wand, James gave him a curious, searching look. Then:

“Pete says you fancy Granger?”

Remus nearly slammed his head into the wall of the tunnel.

.

.

.

“I told you,” said Lily triumphantly. “I told you a dueling club was a good idea.”

Hermione, who was perched on the stool meant for taking up hems, turned the page of her book. “I don’t have time, not with all these classes—and—”

“Well, managing a club’s much easier than managing a class, isn’t it?” Alice pointed out, sensibly. Alice already had her dress robes—a lovely floaty thing in a delicate shade of purple—but she’d decided to come along just to get a better pair of shoes, or so she said. Personally, Hermione thought that Alice, despite all her shyness, was just as eager to dress Hermione up like a doll as Lily and Mo were.  _ This _ , she thought, was one of those silly, ineffable girl things that she’d never been paying attention in class for. She was very out of her depth, right now. “Professor Flitwick would do most of the actual teaching, probably. You’d just have to schedule dates and times, put up recruitment posters and things. Make sure there’s a teacher available on the night of.”

“Every  _ week _ ?” said Hermione.

“Well, if you start now, you could get all of next term scheduled before Christmas. It’s just a matter of checking schedules—though I s’pose if you can’t get Flitwick to sign on you’d be out of luck, he’s already probably busy with Charms Club—”

“Professor Meadowes said she’d sponsor it if we did,” said Hermione. Lily beamed.

“There you go! Problem solved.”

“Merlin,” said Mo, and poked her head around the rack of dress robes. She’d overheard them talking in the Great Hall about the Slug Club—Hermione had finally decided that turning down a professor was much different from declining to attend a voluntary school event, even with Sirius’s theories about  _ quotas _ —and invited herself along to the dress robe search. Hermione wasn’t entirely sure when all her friends had become girls, but it was starting not to feel strange. “We’re supposed to be shopping for Hermione, you lot, not chatting about clubs.”

“Or we could chat about clubs,” said Hermione, a bit miserably. “I’m fine wearing the same robes to both parties, honestly, it was bad enough having to explain to McGonagall why I had to pull from my fund today when I already asked for some of it to get new knitting needles—”

“ _ Absolutely not, _ ” said Lily and Mo in the same moment. They looked at each other, and then Lily added, “If you’re going to stick around for hols and go to both Slughorn’s lunch  _ and  _ the Yule Ball, you’ll need two sets of dress robes.”

“It’s just—” Hermione waved a hand, trying to be blasé. “They’re—expensive.”

“Which is why we’re hunting in the discount section,” said Alice, and took a set of robes off the rack. “Maybe this one?”

She knew better than to fight about it. Hermione put down her book, took the robes—they were pink, but a delicate, pale kind of pink, like the inside of a seashell—and disappeared into the dressing room to fuss with them.

“If you want I could help,” said Alice, as Hermione shuffled out of her jeans and sweaters, hanging them on the hook in the changing room so they wouldn’t get wrinkled. “I’m—I don’t think I’d be a good president either, but I can maybe help you talk to teachers.”

“I still don’t even know if—”

A pale hand with green nail polish—Lily’s hand—poked through the curtain holding a pair of low heels in the same pale pink. “Shoes.”

Hermione took them, and the hand disappeared.

“I still don’t even know if I want to turn it into a club,” said Hermione, though that argument sounded weak even to her ears. “And I definitely wouldn’t be a good president.”

“Girl power,” said Lily firmly on the other side of the curtain. “You absolutely would. And we’d all help you. Remus too, most likely, though he and I both have too many Prefect duties to do much on nights we have rounds— _ and  _ the first years would help, they adore you.”

“They’re terrified,” said Hermione shortly. “That’s not adoration, that’s their survival instincts.”

“For someone who’s so bloody brilliant, Hermione, you can be a bit thick sometimes,” said Lily, but it was said so affectionately that Hermione couldn’t even be cross over it. She pulled the pink robes over her head, and yanked her hair out from under the collar, wishing there was a mirror inside the dressing room that  _ wouldn’t  _ critique the size of her hips or the scars on her body. She’d covered it with her cloak just to shut the thing up.

“Done?” said Alice, and Hermione fumbled on the shoes.

“How many more of these do we have to try?”

“As many as we have to until we find the right one,” said Lily, and Hermione groaned her way out of the dressing room to stand there, waiting for judgment. She didn’t like this one—there was too much cleavage in the cut of the collar, as high as it went up in the back, and it showed off part of the purple hexmark over her sternum. Valiantly, none of the other girls made a single comment about it, though she could see Mo’s eyes riveted to the tail of purple scarring, as if transfixed.

“No,” said Lily after a moment. “It makes you look like the ghost of a Victorian witch who threw herself off a cliff in her nightdress after her true love turned out to be a troll.”

In spite of herself, Hermione snorted.

“It does not!” Alice looked insulted. “She looks sweet.”

“Hermione’s  _ fierce _ ,” said Mo, looking equally insulted. “She’s not  _ sweet _ .”

“Well, thank you, Mo,” said Hermione, dryly, and Lily hid another grin behind her hair.

“You’re welcome,” said Mo.

“Right, back in,” said Lily, and Hermione returned to her own private hell of the dressing room to change her clothes. She’d left her book out there, she thought, mournfully. If only she could have her book. “We could do it all together, I think.”

“Throw Hermione off a cliff?” said Mo, faux innocent, and Alice giggled.

“No,” said Lily. “Run the club. If we each take turns doing the duties depending on who’s busiest, I’m sure we could manage it. If Hermione’s all right with it.”

“I don’t have a problem with it, really,” said Hermione. Alice’s hand came through with a periwinkle colored set of robes that Hermione could already see was too short for her. “It’s just the papers Frank gave me have a space for a president and a secretary—no, Alice, longer skirt—”

“Oh, sorry,” said Alice. Her hand retracted. “I don’t mind being secretary. You and Lily can be co-presidents.”

“Oh,” said Lily, flustered. Clearly this had not been in her calculations. “I mean—I—maybe—if—if that’s all right, Hermione—”

“Or you and Remus,” said Alice, thoughtfully. “Or all three of you. Just to split the time evenly.”

“We’re not signing Remus up to be co-president of the dueling club without asking him,” said Hermione firmly, even as Mo—it was definitely Mo, the hand was freckled and the nails were bitten to the quick—poked through another dress, this one a soft, gleaming gold with surprisingly beautiful sleeves made of lace. The shapes in the lace changed as Hermione watched, from geese to wolves when she touched it, and she realized— _ it must sense Patronuses. _ It was a phenomenally clever bit of magic, and one that made her itch to head to the library. “That’s not fair.” 

“I don’t think he’d complain, he likes—”

“Shoes,” said Lily again, and poked another set through, open toed gold sandals like a Roman lady might wear. Hermione took them, and wondered if buying them meant she’d have to paint her toenails.

“Besides, he’d probably be for it,” Alice added. “He enjoys—dueling practice.”

“That doesn’t mean he’d enjoy managing a club full of angry students,” said Hermione, and pulled the gold dress robes on. They were floor length and close-cut to the waist, not close enough to make her uncomfortable but enough to keep from being tangled. The high collar hid the spellmark from the duel in the Department of Mysteries, and it was nice not to have to worry about people asking questions. It looked—different, with her dark skin, she thought. Not bad, just—different. There was no mirror for her to see the full effect, but since she was already better pleased with the neckline on this one than she had on any of the twelve preceding it, she was willing to give it a chance. “He has enough to do.”

“So do you, and you’re still doing it.”

“Because Professor Meadowes asked me to,” said Hermione. She sighed through her nose. “I’ll ask him when he’s feeling better—he’s been in the Hospital Wing since Thursday—someone help me with the zipper?”

Mo was the one to poke her head into the changing room, and find the zipper amongst all the fabric, tugging it up over the strap of Hermione’s bra and smoothing the fabric back out. “Shoes,” she said, firmly, before slipping out again. Hermione sighed but sat down and began to do up the strappy sandals. She didn’t like the shoes at all—they pinched, and she’d have to shave her legs—but she put them on anyway, because there was a social contract here and if she didn’t she’d be in trouble.

“Well, if we start it as an actual club, it’ll be brilliant,” said Lily. “We’d be able to practice much more often,  _ and  _ we could get coaching from Professor Flitwick—he’s been dueling since the twenties, it’d be fantastic—”

“I don’t like these shoes,” said Hermione, even as she did up the last buckle. “I feel like a gladiator.”

“We can find different ones,” said Lily. “Are you decent?”

Hermione sighed, and pulled the curtain back.

Abruptly, Lily, Alice, and Mo all fell silent. They looked at her, and then at each other, and then at her again. Hermione fidgeted, and folded her arms across her stomach, hating the feel of the lace even as the pattern shifted and changed. Her toes pinched.

“Not this one,” said Hermione after a moment, and went to go back into the dressing room.

“ _ Don’t move _ ,” said Alice, so dangerously that Hermione actually froze. She’d never heard Alice so forceful. Then: “Let me see the shoes.”

Hermione obediently lifted the skirt high enough to show off the sandals.

“No,” said Alice, and walked off.

Hermione didn’t move. “Should I change, or—”

“ _ Don’t you dare take that off, _ ” said Lily, and Hermione decided the best thing for all concerned would be for her to shut up. “Mo, you’re a sorceress.”

Mo beamed.

.

.

.

_ Dear Hermione, _

_ Please don’t worry about the change in plan! I’m sure Slughorn put the thumbscrews on, he usually does if he doesn’t get his way. _

_ I’ll say as a former member—Slug Club supper parties are always at the very least entertaining, if not useful. I know this sounds dreadfully Slytherin of me to say (I’m still amused that you were Sorted into Gryffindor; even with everything Mitzy and Mo have written about, somehow I didn’t picture you in red and gold) but if you haven’t decided what you want to do as a beginning career, you might find something interesting just by chatting with people at those parties. And who knows—you may see some friendly faces! _

_ Things here have been fairly calm the last few weeks. I’ve passed more than half my courses, and I only have one or two more tests left before I’m officially certified as a Hitwizard. Mum is horrified, obviously. Thank you for the messages regarding Mo and Mitzy; I know it helps Mum a great deal to hear that they’re doing all right, even if Hogwarts is more dangerous than we anticipated. _

_ Speaking of: I heard from Mum that she had a letter from McGonagall about your role in the incident with Abernathy Corner. The Aurors did an investigation—I don’t know if you heard about it, they kept it pretty quiet and didn’t speak to any students—but Corner doesn’t remember who cursed him. People rarely do. If you hit someone in the back with an Imperius Curse, then order them to forget, they have no conscious memory of the incident, and it takes a great deal of careful magic to draw anything out of the mind. The risk of memory damage is too great. He’ll probably return in the spring term—that is, if his parents don’t leave the country entirely. Last I heard, they were going to move back to France. _

_ Your thoughts re: a dueling club seem solid. Though if I can make one suggestion: Flitwick usually has Charms Clubs on the second Saturday, so if you can keep meetings to a weeknight it might be easier. Similarly, your club structure might be more streamlined if: _

_ Lead teacher: Professor of the night _

_ Supervisor of teams: 2-4 advanced students (you said Lupin is good? And yourself, obviously. Possibly Lily Evans.) _

_ Your thoughts on using Iqbal’s modified Shield Charms are sound—better to keep any deflected spells from hurting anyone—but I would say that your layout might need to be adjusted just slightly. First years should be near students who can easily block if things should go wrong; put them between fifth and sixth years, so the layout would be: _

_ Fourth Years | Second Years | Seventh Years | Fifth Years | First Years | Sixth Years | Third Years _

_ Just to make sure everyone with less control of their magic is by someone who has stronger control. _

_ Similarly: if you have a professor plus three team supervisors (I know you said Lupin and Evans can’t be there every night, but if you keep that format) then each person would have 1-2 years to supervise, which is manageable if the first year class is, indeed, so very small. _

_ (This is based off Hitwizard training if you’re curious. I’m not trying to be bossy.) _

_ Hope you’re doing well— _

_ Marlene _

.

_. _

_. _

The whole of the castle seemed to be holding its breath until the 22nd of December, whereupon all students who were going home all trooped down to Hogsmeade to catch the train, and all the madmen who had elected to stay behind for the Yule Ball, Slughorn’s Christmas Eve lunch, or both took advantage of the two days off to sleep in and pretend they were actually on holiday. Hermione tracked down Professor Meadowes before she departed for hols, turning in the paperwork (and getting a pounding clap on the back that felt as though it snapped a rib) for the dueling club, with hers, Lily’s, and Remus’s names all listed as co-presidents.

Hermione wound up asking him when she brought his homework into the Hospital Wing for him, after she, Alice, and Mo had returned from Hogsmeade (Lily had remained behind to go spend time with Snape in relative anonymity). He looked wretched, somehow even more tired and wan than he’d looked in her world after the full moon, but he smiled when he saw her and seemed slightly less miserable than he had before, so she supposed that was a good thing. Remus seemed touched to be included in the enterprise, and agreed almost as soon as she suggested it, though with the caveat that he may have to bow out of certain meetings or events if they conflicted with his Prefect schedule.

“Or with turning half the school into their House mascots, I assume,” Hermione added—she couldn’t stop herself—and Remus turned a bit pink before giving her a half-smile that was so completely, wickedly Fred and George that she had to bite her lip to keep from smiling back.

“Who said I had anything to do with that?”

Hermione rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, don’t. It’s a miracle the four of you haven’t been caught.  _ Everyone  _ knows what you call yourselves, and  _ none  _ of you can lie  _ at all _ .” She frowned. “Honestly, considering the last prank you lot played—”

“I neither confirm nor deny,” said Remus, still half-smiling, “but I’d think that considering what the world’s like outside Hogwarts, having an afternoon with a forked tongue or a badger tail isn’t the worst thing in the world that could happen.”

She couldn’t argue that. She supposed, if Abernathy Corner hadn’t been Imperius’d, the prank would have been the talk of the school. After a moment, she said, with great reluctance, “Well, I suppose.”

“Besides, it’s been almost five years, Hermione,” said Remus, and leaned back against his pillows, trying to hide his wince. His ribs were bandaged, and she hated to ask what was underneath them; gashes, perhaps, or dog bites. He had not provided a reason for why he was in the Hospital Wing, and she had deliberately not asked, not wanting to force him into a corner. Sirius and James had made a lot of noise about a stomach bug. Honestly, it was a miracle no one had noticed how  _ obvious  _ the four of them were all being with their nonsense. Though, she supposed, nobody noticed how Professor Snape was  _ obviously  _ bringing Wolfsbane to Professor Lupin’s rooms seven days a month in her third year. People weren’t very observant, she’d found. “Nobody’s questioned my ability to lie yet.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t report you to Professor McGonagall,” she said. “ _ Or  _ Professor Dumbledore. I should have.”

“You like me too much,” said Remus, and when she looked up at him, he was studying his textbooks instead, careful to keep his bandaged wrist close to his chest. “What is it for Defense, again?”

“Professor Iqbal wants thirty-six inches on the identification, symptoms, and long-term effects of the Imperius Curse; I have mine half done already but—”

“Of course you do,” said Remus fondly.

“—it’s not due until the first class after we get back from holiday—and then he still wants us working on that history of the Unforgivables and their use throughout all the great conflicts in the wizarding world to date, and to work on  _ Protego Maxima _ —”

“You know that’s not due until February?”

“There’s a holiday,” said Hermione firmly. “No point in not working on it.”

Instead of complaining, or muttering under his breath about her being a  _ bloody draft sergeant _ , Remus just nodded, and opened his textbook.

“Are you staying for Christmas?” said Hermione after a moment, and Remus looked up at her in surprise.

“I—hadn’t decided. Probably, unless my dad needs me back. He hasn’t written yet, though.”

“People leave on Tuesday,” she said.

“I know.” He shrugged, and then winced when it pulled at whatever was hidden under his bandages. “I—dunno. I think my dad’s going up to Yorkshire.”

Hermione blinked. “I thought you lived near Aber.”

“Aye, but after my mam died—” he stopped. “He’s been packing things up. Doesn’t want to put the cottage up for sale, but I dunno. He can’t live in it. So—I dunno. Easier for me to stay here.”

Hermione frowned—the idea of staying away, instead of going through it together, did not make sense to her—but she pressed her lips together and said nothing. Remus’s relationship with his father, she told herself, was  _ not  _ her business. She’d certainly never heard him mention either of his parents back in her world, aside from talking about how he’d been bitten by Greyback, and that in and of itself would be enough to fracture a relationship between a parent and child, knowing that what you’d said had led to them being attacked by the most dangerous werewolf of the twentieth century.

“You’re staying, though,” said Remus. It was not a question. “You and Lily and Mary are all headed to Slughorn’s thing. And—and the Ball. Right?”

“Unfortunately,” said Hermione. “Honestly, I would much rather prefer going back to Cornwall with the McKinnons, but it—it seemed impolite to turn down an invitation from a teacher.”

“Right,” said Remus. “Of course.”

“Lily and I are going together,” she said. “Lily didn’t want to tell people she was going alone, so she made up a story, but then she realized she’d actually have to show up with someone, and she was  _ going  _ to go with Mary but then Mary found a date of her own, so the pair of us are going as friends.”

“Oh,” said Remus.

“To be honest, I’m not looking forward to any of it very much. The Ball  _ or  _ Professor Slughorn’s luncheon. It just sounds like a lot of people trying to show off.”

“That’s what it is.”

“You’re going?”

“Oh, I never get invited to any Slug Club event,” he said, with a dry sort of bitterness. “My dad’s a disgrace to the Ministry—almost lost his job after—after some fuss with the Regulation department, and my mam was a Muggle so I’m not pureblood like James or Sirius—”

“Your mother was a Muggle?” said Hermione, and Remus looked up at her, catching her eyes and searching her face for a moment.

“Yeah.” With a small, proud, somewhat sad smile, he said, “She worked in insurance.”

“My parents were dentists,” said Hermione. “They—they ran their own dental clinic out of—Lyon. They were very popular, they—they were very good at their jobs.”

“They were your parents,” said Remus. “I’m sure they were very brilliant dentists.”

Hermione blushed a little, but smiled. “Meant that we never had sugar in our house when I was growing up, though. I think the only time I ever broke the rules when I was little was when I snuck into my grandmother’s pantry and ate six shortbread cookies out of her special tin. I felt so awful for breaking the rules I woke them up at three in the morning and told them immediately.”

Remus’s sad smile faded into something wider, a little amused. “You  _ told them _ ?”

“I was five and I broke the rules, I was worried I’d get in trouble—stop  _ laughing _ , why are you laughing at me—”

“I can’t believe you told them,” said Remus, still grinning like an idiot. Then: “Ow, Hermione, don’t hit me with the book—”

“Stop  _ laughing _ ,” said Hermione. “If you tell Lily or Sirius or—”

“I wouldn’t,” he said. “Cross my heart.” And he did, making an X over the bandages on his chest without hesitation. “They’ll have to drag it out of me with hippogriffs.”

“Prat,” she said, though she found she couldn’t stop smiling about it. “I can’t believe Professor Slughorn doesn’t invite you, though. Avery and Mulciber are both going, and you’re much cleverer than they are.”

Remus turned a pleased-looking pink. “Until I do something extraordinary and prove to him I’d be useful, I don’t think he’ll be inviting me anytime soon. Lily’s brought me along once or twice, but—” He shrugged. “It’s not as if I’m always knocking on his office door, bringing him crystallized pineapple to get in his good graces.”

“That’s—” She could not think of a good word for what that was. Classist. Prejudiced. Arrogant. Hermione set her jaw, and then said, “Well, if you like, you can come with me and Lily. We’re allowed to bring a guest.”

Remus coughed. “I, ah. Think Lily’s going with someone already.”

“Really?”

“Fabian Prewett asked her to come as his date.”

Hermione digested this—Lily hadn’t said anything about a date back in Hogsmeade—and set that aside for later consideration. Maybe she’d want to keep it quiet. Hermione doubted that James Potter would take it well, hearing that Lily was going out on a date with somebody. “Well, you can come with me, then. Only—only if you want to,” she added, as Remus turned redder and looked very hard at the cover of his Defense textbook. “I—it’s sure to be a miserable time, and—it’d be nice to have a friend there, but—only if you want to, honestly, I don’t want to drag you along to something you’ll hate—”

“No, I—I’ll come,” said Remus. He looked at her through his bangs, and then away. “If you’re certain, it’s—if you find someone else, I mean—”

Hermione blinked. “Why would I ask someone else?”

Remus mumbled something that sounded like “Gideon.”

“Gideon  _ Prewett _ ?”

“He fancies you,” said Remus, awkwardly. “Sirius and James says he never shuts up about you in the locker room—”

“Urgh,” said Hermione. “I—no. Even if he were the last boy in school, I wouldn’t be asking  _ Gideon Prewett _ .” Ron’s  _ uncle _ ? And—and so full of himself she was surprised he didn’t slip and fall flat on his face with the amount of confidence he oozed? Absolutely not. “And if he asks me, then I’m already going with you to Slughorn’s party, and I’m going to the ball with Lily, so—so that’s the end of it.”

Remus ducked his head to hide a grin.

.

.

.

Hermione allowed herself a rare lie-in on Christmas Eve morning. She would have to get up soon, to prepare for the luncheon—it didn’t start until two o’clock, and it would take at least an hour or two for her to get ready, even without Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion to smooth out her hair—but for a while she kept her curtains drawn, staring at the roof of her four-poster bed and tapping her wand absently against the cover of her journal. She’d added much more to it, in the months since she’d first started keeping her lists, but it was difficult to tell what pieces of information were, or would be, relevant. She had, however, started clipping out any article in the  _ Prophet  _ that included someone she knew was or would be in the Order, and pasting it into the notebook. Professor Moody had a tendency to glare at her from photographs whenever she opened the thing up now, usually accompanied by a much younger-looking Amelia Bones. (Another difference, Hermione thought. Amelia Bones hadn’t been an Auror for this long, in her world. She’d been promoted quickly as people had started to die off. And, so far as Hermione knew, she’d never worked with Professor Moody.)

Her timeline was getting longer, too. So was her list of questions. Minister Jenkins had officially remained in office long past Hermione’s expectations. Barty Crouch Sr. had yet to be promoted. The Wizengamot was keeping its name and decisions out of the papers, and no matter who she asked, nobody could remember the last case they’d decided on. She kept track of deaths reported in both the  _ Prophet  _ and Muggle newspapers, and made another list of incidents in the  _ London Times  _ that the Ministry kept dangerously quiet about. On one of the last pages of her notebook, she’d written out all the Order members she could remember. Some of the names—the obvious ones for a start,  _ James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Lily Evans, Marlene McKinnon, Emmeline Vance, Gideon & Fabian Prewett, Alice Crouch, Frank Longbottom, Rubeus Hagrid, Dorcas Meadowes _ —had tick marks beside them; she’d met them, she knew where they were and who they were, and knew that they were, or would soon be, members of the first incarnation of the Order of the Phoenix.

There were more she was not sure of. Hestia Jones, perhaps; Arabella Figg, but she was a Squib and would not be at Hogwarts so there was no way for Hermione to be sure; Mundungus Fletcher, most likely already a sneak thief on the streets of London; Snape—did Snape count yet? She still had no idea why or how he’d joined the Order, though she had the feeling now that Lily had something to do with it—Sturgis Podmore, who had killed Broderick Bode under the Imperius Curse; Dedalus Diggle; Edgar Bones; Elphias Doge; Caradoc Dearborn; and more still she had no idea the names of. Tonks, if she’d even been born yet, would be too young, and Professor Moody was still too frequently in the papers for him to be an active recruit. Then there was Magda, who Hermione had never heard of in her own time. If there were more—and she hoped there were more, it seemed too small, too few, to fight against the hate in the world—she did not know their names.

She kept this page in code, and carefully charmed, so that only she could read it. If someone found her notebook lying around with a list of all the current, and potential future, members of the Order of the Phoenix in it, she would never, ever forgive herself.

Hermione crammed her notebook under her mattress, tugged her curtains back, and went to wash her hair before breakfast.

Hogwarts around Christmastime was always beautiful and lonely; more students, she thought, had stayed behind this year than she’d ever seen, probably to stay safe, but the Great Hall was still less than half full when she settled at the Gryffindor table and found some jam and toast. The Great Hall would soon need clearing out, and would most likely be closed off after lunch for the teachers to prepare everything, and Hagrid—she looked up at the High Table, and looked away before Hagrid would notice her watching him—had already dragged in pine trees tall enough to brush the enchanted ceiling, settling them along the outskirts of the Hall. The trees had a tendency to shake their needles into people’s food, however. Over at the Slytherin Table, Regulus Black was picking pine needles out of his cereal bowl. Hermione picked a bit of toast out of the cooling rack, and was reaching for the knife when an owl—not any of the school owls, but a beautiful scops owl flared its wings as it flew—landed in front of her and stuck out its leg. The handwriting—her heart rose and sank at once—was Ted Tonks’s. She took the letter, and let the owl drink from her cup while she unrolled the scroll with suddenly trembly fingers.

_ Dear Hermione, _

_ Please call me Ted. Mr. Tonks makes me sound dreadfully old. _

_ I was very pleased to hear from you, and can only ask that you forgive my late response; the Christmas holidays have meant a rash of injuries at St. Mungo’s, and despite my status as a mind healer I was pulled into the emergency wards for a week or so to provide extra assistance. Now that I’ve been put back in my proper place, I can write. _

_ Is there a particular day or time that you would like to meet? I am available most weekdays at eleven o’clock to one o’clock, or in the evenings from four o’clock to six o’clock. Considering it’s the holidays, and schedules can become a little snarled, we could wait until you return to Hogwarts for the spring term—or we could meet at your convenience at your home or in a café? I don’t know how much you have shared with your family about meeting a mind healer, and don’t wish to intrude or cause you unnecessary embarrassment. _

_ If you would prefer to keep our sessions solely to written correspondence, we could attempt it, though I don’t know how helpful it would be for you. _

_ Regards, and I hope to hear from you soon, _

_ Ted _

“Who’s Ted?” said a curious voice, and Hermione let the parchment snap back into its roll before Peter could read any more of it.

“Friend of the McKinnons’,” said Hermione, and put the letter in her pocket. Peter was alone, for once. Neither Sirius nor James would be awake yet, she thought, and Remus would likely have been and gone. She wasn’t due to meet him to head for the lunch until about a quarter to two, anyway. “I met him over the summer.”

“Oh,” said Peter, in a voice that made it clear he did not believe this, but would let it be for the moment. He seized a platter of sausages, and pulled them closer. “Right.”

He looked dreadful, Hermione thought. There were deep rings under his eyes. Peter was chubby and a bit spotty, but he’d never looked like this before; like a patchwork of misery, blotchy in some places and too pale in others, his eyes even more watery and red-rimmed like he’d been crying. Hermione hesitated, and smeared butter on her thumb instead of on her second piece of toast.

“Are you all right?” she asked, trying not to sound overly concerned. It did not work. Peter hunched closer into himself, and jabbed a sausage with the tip of his knife.

“Fine,” he said. “I’m allergic to pine needles.”

Hermione, delicately, she thought, did not point out that he went running around in many, many pine trees with a werewolf once a month. Firstly because there was no earthly way she should know that, and secondly because—well, it might have been a weak excuse, but she didn’t know Peter well enough to push harder. A part of her couldn’t believe she was pushing. Still, she frowned. “It’s just—you’ve seemed—upset, lately. You haven’t been coming to dueling practice much.”

Peter looked at her sidelong, and then went back to cutting his sausage up into teeny tiny pieces. “Mm.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” said Hermione, as Peter Pettigrew added beans to his plate to make some kind of breakfast soup with bits of sausage mixed in.

“Not really,” he said.

“Oh.”

He prodded his soupy mess, and then put down his fork in favor of a spoon. After poking at it for a bit longer, he said, “It’s stupid.”

She still couldn’t quite put her finger on Peter, Hermione thought. Sometimes he was exactly what she had expected—a little mousy, fawning, clever but with little initiative and less bravery. Not nearly as charismatic as the rest of his friends. But other times he’d surprised her. He was a talented wizard, she’d seen that in dueling practice. And he wasn’t  _ cruel _ . She’d always thought he’d be cruel. But he wasn’t. She’d expected Wormtail, Voldemort’s last hope, and had found, instead, a chubby, anxiety-ridden boy with a tendency of blurting out awkward truths but keeping his thoughts to himself. Out of the Marauders, Hermione realized with a sharp shock, Sirius and James had the cruelest streaks.

Hermione watched him for a while. Then she stood, and loaded half a tray of bacon into a napkin before touching his shoulder, jerking her head towards the door when he looked up at her in surprise. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk.”

Peter looked down at his plate of soup, and then pushed it away, pulling his cloak on to follow her. He did not argue.

Someone had already been outside to clear a path through the snow drifts, and other places had been waded through by Hagrid. They followed some of Hagrid’s tracks down to the edge of the Forbidden Forest—Peter gave her increasingly anxious looks as she led them, but did not ask questions—and Hermione cleared off the log she’d shared with Regulus Black with a flick of her wand. It was only when she put her bacon down, stuck her index and middle fingers in her mouth, and let out a piercing whistle that Peter yelped.

“What are you  _ doing _ ?” Peter said.

Hermione whistled again—he winced—before pulling her hand from her mouth. “Calling the thestrals.”

“Are you  _ mad _ ?” Peter turned white. “They—they’re predators, bad luck, they—”

“They’re not mean and they’re not unlucky,” said Hermione, as the lead mare, with her skeletal face and dead white eyes and the scar on her chest from what looked like a hex, poked her head out of the trees. They came to Hermione’s whistle, now, had done for more than a month, but it still shocked her to see them come creeping out of the shadows of the Forest at her call. “They’re just a bit odd-looking. Sit.”

Peter sat with a thump as the little foal—much larger, now; not full grown, but still big enough to knock her down—came trundling out of the Forest and bumped his head to Hermione’s chest in a hello. Hermione scratched behind the bones where his ears should have been before holding out a hand to Peter. “Bacon?”

Peter put a piece in her hand. He did not speak. Hermione fed the foal—she wasn’t creative enough to come up with a name for him that didn’t sound like  _ Crookshanks _ —and then paid proper attention to the lead mare for a while, letting Peter settle in the quiet and the chill of the Forest. The longer it went without the thestrals trying to eat her, the more he relaxed, though he flinched badly when the foal swung his head around to look at the collection of bacon in his hands.

It was only after Hermione had started stroking the wings of the lead mare that Peter let out a heaving sigh, and knuckled at his eyes.

“It’s  _ stupid _ ,” he said.

Hermione, who’d spent a whole year listening to Ron Weasley talk about Fleur Delacour, rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard stupid things before.”

Peter looked at her, and Hermione could not work out if it were reproachful or curious. He rubbed his hands over his face again, and gave her the napkin full of bacon before sitting back on the log. “I,” he said, and then fumbled his words, looking down at the snow, drawing patterns in it with his tattered trainer. None of his shoes were reparable. “I was—I wanted—to ask Alice to the Ball.”

Hermione nodded, and dug her fingernails into the protruding vertebrae of the lead mare’s spine. The lead mare let out a happy sigh, and leaned against her as if she were a kitten.

“I know I’ve got no chance,” said Peter, suddenly. His nose was going pink again, and not from cold. “She’s—she’s out of my league, I  _ know  _ that, but you—you can’t control who you—”

He stammered to a halt, bright red, and went back to drawing patterns in the snow. Something ached behind her ribs. Hermione held her palm out flat for another thestral, one which hadn’t yet had a chance at a strip of bacon—this one a stallion, though he took the piece of meat with utmost delicacy from her hand—and then looked back at Peter, holding the napkin out of reach of the foal.

“D’you want to try?”

Peter shook his head a bit numbly. “I—I dunno how you can get near those things. They’re supposed to be aggressive.”

“They’re not,” said Hermione, and went back to scratching the cheek of the lead mare. “They’re really quite gentle. Honestly.”

Peter shook his head again.

“It’s—” Hermione stopped, just for a moment. She found, in that breath, that she couldn’t look at Peter anymore. “It’s—painful fancying someone you know you don’t have a hope with. Even if—even  _ though _ you know that you don’t have a look-in, it—stings to see them—choosing someone else.”

She pushed away the face that swam forward in her mind, a freckled one with a long nose and blue eyes and bright red hair.  _ You’re not going back _ , she told herself.  _ You can’t go back. You can’t. Stop thinking about it _ .

“I’m sorry,” Peter said. He sounded hushed, as though the fallen snow and the thestrals and the secret had stolen sound from the air. “Did—did you ever—”

He trailed off.

“I didn’t tell him,” said Hermione, and blinked furiously to clear her vision. “And—and now I can’t. I’m—I’m getting over it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Peter nod.

“It hurts,” she said, and the lead mare walked away from her to nose at the foal, her foal, lipping with sharp teeth at the foal’s hindquarters to get him moving when he tried to suckle. He was much too old for that, now. “Especially at the start. Makes you feel small, and—and unwanted. Unlikable. But—but I don’t—just because one person doesn’t want or like you, that doesn’t mean  _ no one  _ will ever want you or like you. It just means that for now it didn’t—work.”

Peter scoffed a little. His eyes were red. “You’re—you’re pretty, though. You can say that. I’m—” He gestured at himself. “I’m—not.”

“Me?” Hermione blinked. “I’m not pretty. I’m a frizzy-haired know-it-all who shrank her own rabbit teeth and gets spots in uncomfortable places.” She wiped her hands clean of bacon grease on her handkerchief before pulling her gloves back on. “Besides, being pretty doesn’t have anything to do with being  _ liked _ . Pretty girls and handsome boys get liked, certainly, but—but not for being  _ them _ . Just because they happen to be good-looking.” She thought of Fleur, and guilt pierced her like an arrow. “I—I imagine it must be quite lonely, to be honest.”

Peter turned that over in his head.

“There’ll be other girls, Peter,” said Hermione. “For all it hurts now. And it’ll hurt if you go to the Ball and see her with Frank, I won’t—I won’t lie about that. But there’ll be other girls. And someday you’ll meet someone who sees  _ you _ , and then you’ll—you’ll do all right.”

He smiled, a bit shakily. “Don’t think I’m that hopeful.”

“Well, stop it,” she said. “Spending all your time with Sirius Black doesn’t make you ugly, you know. Somebody will figure that out, someday.”

He didn’t say anything. She couldn’t blame him—it was hard to believe, even as she said it, knowing what she knew, knowing what would happen. Still, when she Vanished her napkin and put her handkerchief back in her pocket, Peter crept through the snow to stand next to her. He looked, she thought, a bit less sad.

“Cheers, Hermione,” he said, after a moment. He was watching the foal dance through the snow, flapping his massive wings in an attempt to get off the ground. He wouldn’t be able to fly until after the New Year, Hermione thought, but it didn’t stop him trying. Hermione patted Peter on the back, tentatively.

“You’re welcome, Peter.”

“You can call me Pete,” he said, not looking at her. His cheeks had gone a bit blotchy again. “My friends call me that.”

It was surreal. Hermione looked at him for a long time, long enough that he turned red and mumbled something like  _ but it’s okay if you don’t want to _ . This was  _ Wormtail _ . Peter Pettigrew, who betrayed his friends to Voldemort, who hid with the Weasleys for a dozen years, who brought Voldemort back from the brink of death, who’d  _ killed Cedric Diggory _ . And yet—

_ He’s not done all that yet _ , she told herself.  _ You’re giving Snape a chance.  _

“Thanks, Pete,” she said, and Peter beamed.

.

.

.

_ Dear Ted, _

_ I’m at Hogwarts for the holidays, so I am free most every day up until the tenth of January, if you are available after the New Year. During the school year I am most frequently free on Thursday afternoons after about five o’clock, if that’s still all right. _

_ Regards, _

_ Hermione _

.

.

.

The path to Professor Slughorn’s Christmas party was marked out with lanterns. They were beautiful and delicate, made of silver and gold paper and lit from within by bluebell flames, casting a dim glow over the path down to the dungeons that flickered and gleamed like shades of sun and moonlight. Up ahead of them, Lily and Fabian Prewett were talking in low voices, Lily’s hand tucked through the crook of his elbow. Hermione had gooseflesh up her arms and the back of her neck. She’d put on her winter cloak, just for the trip down to the dungeons—and to keep any of the boys still in the common room from whistling, the way they had when they’d seen Lily’s sky-colored strapless number—but her bare arms were pimpled with the damp chill as they went down the stairs that led beneath the lake.

“You all right?” said Remus, and fussed with the cuffs of his shirt again. He’d outgrown his dress robes, and the sleeves were just a bit too short, the hems too high; still, he looked nice, albeit a bit tattered, and he’d made some effort with his hair. He was still moving like his ribs were hurting, though, even almost a week after the full moon. Hermione had set a slow walk just for that, though the fact that she was currently in low heels meant that she appreciated the pace. She’d never been good in heels. “You keep shaking.”

“I’m cold, is all,” she said, and fussed absently with the ends of her hair again. Sleekeazy’s was expensive, and she could not afford it in this decade where it’d been newly released; her hair, instead of in a twist, was left to fan out, frizzy as always, though Mary had produced a gold headband from nowhere to help her tie it back out of her eyes. Hermione, who had a strong inkling that her roommates kept buying her things, let them lie and say that they “just happened” to have things that matched her outfit; she couldn’t argue without hurting their feelings. “It’s freezing.”

Remus looked at her out of the corner of his eye for a bit. Then, carefully, he bumped his elbow to hers. “We’ll be at the party soon. It’ll be warmer in there.”

“Let’s hope.” She drew her cloak closer around herself, and cast her eyes ahead, towards Lily and Fabian. “When did that start?”

“For him? About two months ago, I think?” When Hermione blinked, Remus smiled, a bit wryly. “Fabian keeps things close to the chest. He only plucked up the courage to ask her to this at our last prefect meeting before the end of term. I don’t think she realized he fancied her until then.”

Ahead of them, Lily tipped her head back and laughed. Fabian looked a little entranced.

“She didn’t tell you?” Remus asked.

“No, she didn’t mention it.”

“Hm.”

“Bet James loves it,” said Hermione under her breath, and Remus’s wry smile turned amused.

“Oh, he’s over the  _ moon _ .”

Fabian said something that Hermione could not quite make out, and then smoothly slid an arm around Lily’s waist. His hair was brighter red than hers, more coppery than fiery, but when they talked in low voices with their heads together that way it was difficult to tell them apart, especially in the dim light.

“He really does fancy her, you know,” said Remus. “James, I mean. He’s being an idiot, but I think he genuinely cares.”

Hermione turned that over in her mind. “If he really cared,” she said, “he’d listen when she told him to let her be.”

A war crossed Remus’s face—defensiveness of James, a longing to agree, a flicker of shame—before he said, “Mm.”

“I  _ know _ he really likes her,” said Hermione— _ of course I know that, I know what happens, or happened _ —“but I just think that if he really, really wants her to start forgiving him, he needs to let up on Snape and stop trying to annoy her all the time. And he needs to stop acting like he’s Merlin’s bloody gift to women, honestly, it drives everyone absolutely mad—”

“I’ve mentioned it a time or two,” said Remus, carefully. “He doesn’t often listen to me.”

Hermione opened her mouth, and shut it again. “Right,” she said. “Sorry.”

“Hey,” said Remus softly, and then touched her elbow again, this time with the tips of his fingers. They turned the corner, and at the end of the hall, music spilled out of a partly open door, casting shadows and warm golden candlelight over the dingy stone. “You don’t need to apologize. It’s just—”

He could not seem to find the word.

“Awkward,” said Hermione, and his eyes lit up.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s—yes. Having my best mate fancy my co-prefect? Awkward.”

“Does he ask much after her?”

Remus pulled a face. “ _ Did she ask about me? Moony, tell me, did she say anything about Prewett? What did she say? _ ” He straightened his mouth back out, and then said, “I don’t mind normally but it’s been worse since Peter told him that—that she’s going to the lunch with Prewett.”

“Poor Remus, caught in the middle,” she said fondly, and on a whim tucked her arm through his as Lily and Fabian disappeared into the repurposed classroom. “Thank you again, by the way. For agreeing to help with the dueling club.”

Remus’s ears turned pink, and he coughed. “Yeah, ‘course. I dunno how much help I’ll be.”

“You’re a good teacher,” said Hermione. “It’ll help.”

The corners of his mouth twitched, as though he were holding back a smile. “Coming from you, that’s a big compliment.”

Hermione felt her face heat. She could not quite look at him anymore. She looked at her feet instead, at the hems of her robes and the peep of gold flaring underneath them, before clearing her throat. “Shall we go in, then?”

Remus squeezed her arm closer to his side. “We can still skive if you like. You look like you’re marching into battle.”

“I hate parties,” she said, and drew herself up. “But it would be rude to say no.”

“And he’s a teacher,” said Remus.

“And that,” she said. She sighed. “Inside, then?”

“Inside,” he said, and let her draw away from him to push open the door. 

Professor Slughorn had chosen the largest potions classroom to host his party in, and just beyond the door, the place was chaos. All the chairs, desks, and tables had been Vanished somewhere—she suspected to another room down the hall—and the walls and ceiling had been draped with shimmery curtains in gold and silver, just like the lanterns leading the way. A house elf she did not recognize, one with a nose shaped rather like a turnip, took hers and Remus’s cloaks—Hermione’s winter cloak almost drowned the poor thing—and chirruped, “I will finds you when you leaves, miss!” before vanishing. Guilt jabbed hard into her stomach. All this time and she’d still not even gone down to the kitchens to check on the house elves. She’d been here long enough she could have logically learned where the kitchens were by now.  _ See what happens when you get caught up in your own drama, silly cow— _

“Hermione?” said Remus, who had caught the look on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Hermione cleared her throat. “I just—I don’t see house elves often.”

“Beauxbatons doesn’t have them?”

“They do, but—” She took a breath. Nobody liked to hear about S.P.E.W. in her own world. She doubted the seventies would have improved anyone’s minds about elfish welfare overmuch. “I’ll tell you later.”

Remus frowned, but touched his fingertips to the small of her back anyway. “There’s food at that table.”

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

“Ah, Miss Granger!” cried a loud, somewhat plummy voice, and out of the crowd emerged Professor Slughorn. His neatly parted walrus mustache was bristling with what looked like powdered sugar. Hermione wondered what he’d been eating. She still was not sure what she thought of Professor Slughorn, and could only be grateful that in this world, it was he who was teaching potions and not Professor Snape. She wasn’t sure there was much to recommend him otherwise. “There you are, we’ve been waiting with bated breath, Magdalene and I—and Mr. Lapin, pleasure to see you—”

“Lupin,” said Hermione, crossly, but Professor Slughorn pretended not to hear her, pulling—of all people—Magda McKinnon out of the tangle. Magda, her eyes powdered to a smoky gold, smiled a secret smile.

“Magda,” said Hermione, and suddenly her eyes welled. When Magda opened her arms for a hug, Hermione didn’t hesitate. “I thought you were in Cornwall, what are you doing here—”

“Horace always invites me to these ‘dos,” said Magda into her ear, and promptly crushed her bones in a tight hug. She smelled of verbena and champagne, and Hermione sank into the hug like she would into one of her mother’s. It felt  _ safe _ , suddenly, with Magda there. “I don’t usually have the time to come, but when we got your letter about your invitation, I figured Horace had browbeaten you into it and I’d best come to wish you a happy Christmas.”

“Nonsense, nonsense, Magdalene,” said Professor Slughorn, though he puffed up quite visibly when Hermione drew far enough away from Magda to notice. “I no more browbeat than I do fuss, I’m simply honored that Miss Granger consented to be a part of my little soiree tonight—she saved that poor girl’s life, you know, Miss Nakama’s—”

“I heard,” said Magda. She searched Hermione’s face. “You all right? It’s hard, seeing a thing like that happen. Especially to someone so young.”

“I’m all right,” said Hermione, and then remembered herself. “Magda, this is my friend, Remus Lupin, he’s in Gryffindor with me—Remus, this is Magda McKinnon, Mo and Mitzy’s mum—”

“And Marlene’s,” said Remus with immediate comprehension, and to her surprise he stuck out a hand like a full adult to shake Magda’s. “I met her last year, before she graduated. Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. McKinnon.”

“It’s Miss, actually,” said Magda, her golden eyes shining, but she shook Remus’s hand firmly. “To my mother’s everlasting consternation.”

“Miss Granger’s one of the better students in my fifth year’s potions class,” said Professor Slughorn, and Hermione could not help but smile at this. She was nowhere near Snape’s caliber—which annoyed her—but it was rare to get a compliment out of Professor Slughorn, and she’d take it when it came. “Quite clever, quite talented—top of almost every other class in the school, so I hear—”

“Minerva keeps me informed,” said Magda. She cupped Hermione’s cheek for a moment. “Marlene’s gone walkabout, but she ought to be here somewhere, she was upset you couldn’t come back for Christmas—”

“Where are Mo and Mitzy?”

“If I know them, trying to get into the firewhiskey I locked in the basement,” said Magda. Her eyes, though, were dark. “Don’t worry—Mitzy’s father’s with them, he’ll keep them safe.”

Professor Slughorn bristled, though not defensively. “A pity that Farhan couldn’t attend this evening—it’s been a long time since he’s been able to get a visa into the country, given his condition—”

Next to her, Remus stilled.

“My daughter rarely gets to see her father, Horace.” Magda’s lips had gone tight. “I’m sure you won’t begrudge her Christmas Eve with her papa?”

“No, no—” Professor Slughorn’s mustache quivered. “Of course not, Magdalene, of course not—”

“Excellent,” said Magda, and put her arm around Hermione’s waist. “Now, then—if you’ll excuse us for a moment, Horace, I want to be sure that Hermione gets to see my daughter before she’s swept away in the crowd—Mr. Lupin, if you’d come along too, I’m sure Marlene would be happy to say hello—”

“Right,” said Remus, who looked a bit overthrown. Hermione reached back with one hand and grabbed his to pull him along with her and Magda into the crowd, before they disappeared from sight.

“Sorry about that,” said Magda, slowing once they were out of sight of Professor Slughorn. “Horace is good-natured, but he has a tendency to show people off, and if I didn’t scoop you away in the first minute I wouldn’t be seeing you for an hour and I have to get back before midnight to be with the girls for Christmas—don’t you look lovely, where on earth did you get this—”

Hermione blushed again, and tried not to feel guilty. “Um, Hogwarts students who don’t—there’s a fund—”

“Right, I forgot, Minerva mentioned you’d dipped into it—” Magda gave her an appraising look, and then cupped her cheek again, smiling. “Mo did much better than I expected, she’s not been interested in clothes before this year—Marlene, there you are—”

“Hermione!” Marlene cried, and then she was swept into another hug, this one even longer and tighter than the first. Marlene had cut her hair; instead of long braids, it was buzzed close to her scalp like a warrior’s, though the hoop in her eyebrow was still firmly settled. There was also—Hermione’s stomach went icy—a new scar on her cheek, from the corner of her left eye down the line of her jaw.

“What happened to your face?”

“Spare hex, it’s fine, don’t worry, all healed up—” Marlene pulled back, and braced her hands on Hermione’s shoulders. “Look at you, you’re beautiful—”

“You could have warned me,” said Hermione weakly, and Marlene winked.

“And spoil the surprise? Nonsense. Marlene McKinnon,” she added to Remus, and shook his hand too. Remus was, Hermione thought with some grouchiness, struggling not to smile at the look on her face.

“Remus Lupin.”

“Right, she’s mentioned you, in her letters—good things to say—now—” Marlene cast a look at her mother. “You two fancy finding a private spot away from the crowd, or d’you have people you’d like to say hi to?”

Hermione looked at Remus, who searched her face for a moment before saying, “I should go check on Sirius and James, before they start getting too rowdy.”

“Right,” said Hermione. “I’ll stay with Marlene.”

Remus smiled, and then vanished between two waiters into the crowd.

“Polite, isn’t he,” said Marlene, grinning at her, and Hermione almost shoved her.

“Don’t, he’s a friend. You could have  _ told me  _ you’d be here, Marlene, honestly—”

“Mum wouldn’t let me,” said Marlene. “I tried to give you a hint, told you you’d see some familiar faces—”

“I thought you meant people from the Ministry or something—”

“Oh, there are some of those here, too, I’m sure—”

“Yes, Ignatia Flack is here, she’s always been one of Horace’s brood,” said Magda, who had somehow managed to get a fancy-looking drink in the time that Hermione had not been looking at her. She drew the cherry out of her glass, and sucked on it absently.

Something leapt up in her chest, like a startled animal. “Ignatia Flack from the DMLE?”

“The very same,” said Marlene. “And Barty Crouch, too, I shouldn’t wonder, those two are usually chained at the hip—”

All of a sudden, Hermione had a stomachache.

“Is it any wonder, these days?” said Magda mysteriously. She looped her arm through Hermione’s. “Come on. Let’s find you a drink.”

It was turning out to be rather a nice party, Hermione thought after her first glass of gillywater. Professor Slughorn turned up after about twenty minutes (“any longer,” said Magda as he approached, “and I think he would have combusted—”) to sweep her around the room and introduce her to people whose faces blurred almost immediately. Barty Crouch, Senior was indeed lurking in the corner of the room with the hawkish woman Hermione had seen in the  _ Daily Prophet _ , both of them talking in low voices as Professor Slughorn approached them but greeting her very civilly despite the interruption. Hermione tried not to wipe her hand on her dress after shaking Mr. Crouch’s hand, knowing the browbeaten house elf he’d be returning to, and the vile son he’d raised. “Little Barty’s around here somewhere,” Professor Slughorn said, with a happy chuckle, but before Hermione could whip her head around to look he’d already shuffled her away, to introduce her to others—a younger Ludo Bagman flashed by, leaning heavily on a cane made of ironwood—then Professor McGonagall, looking rather distempered, noticed Hermione looking and rolled her eyes—a broad, glassy-eyed gentleman who seemed to be on his fifth glass of port knocked into her shoulder as she talked with a woman from  _ Witch Weekly _ —

“And these,” said Professor Slughorn, all triumph and pleasure, “are the Boneses—quite famous, you know, in the wizarding world, a dreadfully old family, very well placed—”

“Not so well of late,” said a man with tawny hair, storm-grey eyes, and a long nose. He looked to be in his early thirties or so, and had a large, reddish-purple port wine stain across the left half of his face, shaped rather like Borneo. He shook her hand. “Edgar Bones, Miss Granger. And this is my wife—”

“Pleasure,” said the woman. She had a definite accent—Nigeria, maybe—and her skin was inky-black, her bare arms marked even darker with tattoos that spread in delicate, whirling patterns. She, too, shook Hermione’s hand. “Nnedimma Bones, though you may call me Nnedi.”

Hermione, feeling rather like she’d just been given a great blessing, said, “Thank you.”

“And this is my sister, Amelia,” said Edgar, and Hermione looked at the witch beside him, with her long red hair in a tight braid and her hawkish grey eyes. Amelia Bones looked back at her, nursing her goblet—water, Hermione thought, nothing stronger. She was one of the only people in the room not wearing dress robes. “Who is here under great duress.”

“Honestly, Ed,” said Amelia Bones. She had a very husky voice, almost deep. “You could stop saying that, it makes it sound like you’ve kidnapped me—”

“Well, it’s been hard enough getting you out of the Ministry the last few months—”

“We’ve been busy,” said Amelia Bones in a sharp voice, before looking back to Hermione. “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Granger.”

“Likewise,” said Hermione. Her head was spinning.

“Miss Granger is the one who saved that girl last month, you know, after the Quidditch match—took great initiative—”

Amelia Bones’s hawk-like eyes sharpened. “Really.”

“You didn’t know?” said Professor Slughorn, as if he’d just been offered a present. “I would have thought it was all the talk of the Auror Department—”

“I’ve had different assignments,” said Amelia. She considered Hermione for a long moment. “And you’re—a sixth year?”

“Fifth year,” said Hermione. Amelia arched one eyebrow.

“A fifth year who goes raring off to rescue another student, instead of getting a teacher?”

“Miss Granger is one of the most talented students in her year,” said Professor Slughorn, as Hermione bit the inside of her cheek and held her tongue. “Starting a dueling club, from the sounds of things, with Miss Evans and Mr. Lapin—”

“Lupin,” said Hermione, unable to help herself.

“Yes, yes,” said Professor Slughorn, annoyed. “A talented duelist, according to Professor Iqbal, and quite good at Transfiguration—on par with James Potter, and that’s a feat—quite good at Healing, too, Poppy says, might make a good Auror someday—”

“Hm,” said Amelia. Next to her, Nnedi swirled her wine in her glass, and whispered something in Edgar’s ear. “High praise indeed.”

“I practice,” said Hermione, who felt, at this point, like a prize show dog being towed around to do special tricks. Praise was one thing. This was quite another. “And—and I want to be able to protect myself.”

“Well, from what I’ve heard, that girl owes you her life,” said Edgar Bones. He raised his glass just slightly. “Her family owes you a debt.”

“I don’t want them to owe me,” said Hermione. Her skin was starting to itch. “I just didn’t want her to get hurt.”

“Mm,” said Amelia, still watching her. “Have you had your career advice meetings yet?”

Professor Slughorn looked pleased. “No, no, those don’t happen until the spring—though I keep telling Minerva—”

“I don’t know if I want to be an Auror,” said Hermione, thinking, privately:  _ After everything the Ministry has done over the years I don’t think I could stomach working for them _ . “I was considering Healing, actually.”

“Edgar’s a Healer,” said Amelia. She put her water goblet down, and reached into her pocket, drawing out a small card. “Though—if you do change your mind about the Auror program, and have any questions, Miss Granger, please feel free to write to me. A fifteen-year-old who runs towards danger instead of away from it has the makings of an Auror, even if you were damn foolish in how you did it.”

Hermione took the card in damp fingers.  _ Amelia Bones, Auror Office _ was patterned on the front in silvery letters, and on the back was the symbol of the Auror Office, all in gold. “I’m seventeen, actually,” she said. “But—thank you.”

Edgar’s eyes sharpened. “Seventeen?”

“I transferred,” she said. “From Beauxbatons. My classes are—”

“—half fifth year, half sixth,” said Professor Slughorn. “Quite brilliant, quite brilliant, as they say—”

“Well,” said Amelia. “Write to me, if you change your mind. And if you want to ask my brother anything, he’s easy to reach: just write  _ Biggest Head in St. Mungo’s _ and it’ll find his desk.”

“Just because you’re a full Auror now doesn’t mean I can’t kick you out of the house, sister dear,” said Edgar, still smiling, and sipped his wine. Next to him, his wife Nnedi smiled.

“Ignore him,” said Amelia. “We all have to poke fun at him, lest he forget he doesn’t run the  _ whole  _ world and not just one wing of a hospital.”

“Edgar manages the Dai Llewellyn Ward,” said Professor Slughorn.

“For my sins,” said Edgar. “My wife has the much more time-intensive job—”

“Nonsense,” said Professor Slughorn. “Surely Healing—”

“No, Ed’s right, Nnedi works harder than both of us,” said Amelia, and Professor Slughorn smiled, looking a little pained.

“Well, quite.”

“Where do you work, Mrs. Bones?” said Hermione, who was determined to extricate herself at some point.

“I am the Nigerian cultural attaché with the Ministry for Magic here in England,” said Nnedi. She looked to Edgar Bones, and then added, “The Ministry has become rather—hectic, of late. It means I work strange hours.”

Hermione nodded. Her mouth had gone just slightly dry. “With the war, you mean.”

Edgar and Nnedi looked at each other. Amelia, eyes narrowing, said, “The rebellion, yes.”

“Forgive me,” said Hermione. “Only—I thought it seemed more like a civil war.”

“We’re hoping it doesn’t come to that,” said Amelia, in a clipped voice. “Though with the rate things are going, you’re not wrong.”

“Surely not,” said Professor Slughorn. His face had gone a bit pale, like porridge. “Come now, Amelia, we’re not at that point—”

“You haven’t seen what I have,” said Amelia Bones. She put her goblet down a mite too hard, and some water sloshed over the edge. “Excuse me.”

With that, she swept away from them, towards the corner of the room where the musicians were huddled, noodling desperately away on their instruments.

“Forgive my sister,” said Edgar. “She’s preoccupied. There isn’t much time off, for an Auror, and it’s difficult not to bring the work home with you.”

“It’s fine,” said Hermione, and let Professor Slughorn take over the conversation. She was looking after Amelia Bones’s retreating back; she’d seen a flash of purple, of dark blonde hair cropped short; Alice, maybe. She looked to Professor Slughorn, to Edgar and Nnedi Bones. “If you’d excuse me?”

Nnedi nodded. “It was lovely meeting you, dear.”

“Lovely to meet you,” said Hermione, and drew away before Professor Slughorn could stop her.

It  _ was  _ Alice. Her floaty purple dress robes were unmistakable, as was her hair, cropped to her jaw. She had her back to Hermione, though, and was talking to someone; she was torqued, awkwardly, as if she were trying to pull away. Hermione sped up.

“—one good reason why I shouldn’t tell my father how you were—”

“Alice,” said Hermione, and the boy holding her wrist—because he  _ was _ holding her wrist, hard enough that Alice had tears in her eyes—abruptly let go. He was small, thin-boned and fair-haired, with brown eyes and a smattering of freckles. Alice, gasping, hiccupped. “Is everything all right?”

“P-Perfectly.” Alice swallowed hard. “We’re just t-talking. That’s all.”

The fair skin of her wrist was red with the marks of the boy’s fingers.

“Yes,” said the boy. He looked to be about thirteen or fourteen, though she couldn’t remember seeing him in the halls. “Just discussing family matters.”

“I—” said Hermione, but Alice reached out and caught Hermione’s hand hard with her own, squeezing her fingers so tight she almost yipped with pain. The boy absolutely noticed. The corner of his mouth curled up; he held out a hand. The smile on his lips, she thought, was rather like Draco Malfoy’s.

“Barty Crouch,” he said. “Ravenclaw. My cousin’s mentioned you.”

Hermione looked at his hand. She did not take it. “Hermione Granger,” she said, heart thudding in her ears like a drumbeat. “Alice hasn’t mentioned you.”

“Oh?” said Barty, and Alice squeezed Hermione’s hand even tighter as he looked to Alice, his smile never slipping. It didn’t look malicious in the slightest, but—Hermione looked down at Alice’s arm again, hidden behind her skirt—she knew better. “I’m surprised. We’re quite close, aren’t we, cousin?”

“Quite,” said Alice, in a small voice. “Yes.”

Her fingers shook against Hermione’s. 

“I see,” said Hermione. “Well—nice to meet you. Alice, will you come help me find Remus? He went to track down James and Sirius a while ago and I haven’t seen him since—”

“Yes,” said Alice, and started nodding. “Yes—see you later, Barty.”

“Nice meeting you,” said Barty to Hermione, and turned away. “Happy Christmas, Alice.”

“Happy Christmas,” said Alice, who was now trembling all over. As soon as Barty vanished, she hiccupped again, and pressed her hand to her lips, the shackle around her wrist raw-red and turning darker with every passing second.

“Alice,” said Hermione. Alice shook her head.

“It’s fine, I’m—I need—loo—”

With surprising strength, Alice pulled away from her. Hermione stood there for a moment in shock, and then followed, pushing through the crowd. Frank Longbottom was nowhere to be seen. Hermione thought, for a second, she heard someone calling her name. Then she was through, out the door, and Alice was turning the corner at the end of the hall, aiming for the girls’ bathroom. Her purple dress robes flared out behind her around the corner, and then with a click, she was inside and the door was locked.

Hermione rapped the door with her knuckles. “Alice?”

No answer.

“Alice, please unlock the door.”

“Hermione?” said a voice. It was Lily. Her hair looked a bit mussed, as if someone had been carding their hands through it, and her lipstick was definitely smeared. Fabian Prewett, Hermione supposed. She was carrying her heels in her hands, padding along the corridor in bare feet. “What’s wrong?”

“Alice won’t come out,” said Hermione, and knocked on the door again. “Alice, please open the door—”

“I’m fine,” said Alice, warbling. “Go away, please, I’ll—I’ll be back in a bit—”

Lily’s lips thinned. “I’ll get Frank.”

Inside the bathroom, there was a wail worthy of Moaning Myrtle. “No,” Alice said, “no, please, please don’t get Frank, I don’t—I don’t want him to—”

Lily was rapidly turning scarlet. “Did he do something? I’ll  _ murder  _ that bastard—”

“Frank didn’t do anything,” said Hermione.

“Then what happened?”

“I’m not sure—Alice,” said Hermione. “I’m opening the door.”

There was no answer. Hermione tapped the locked door with her wand.

Alice was standing in front of one of the grimy sinks, hands braced against the porcelain as if it were holding her upright. The red mark around her wrist was rapidly blossoming into a purple bruise, perfectly outlined in the shape of a handprint. Her eye makeup was running; she was crying, or valiantly attempting not to, though the tears dribbling down her cheeks said how well she was doing on  _ that  _ score. Her lipstick was smeared across her cheek, over the back of her hand, as if she’d tried to scrub it off. Hermione slipped inside the bathroom, and then paused, on her toes, unsure. Lily didn’t seem to know what to do either. She was standing in the doorway, watching as if she was waiting for a bomb to go off.

“Alice?” said Lily, after a long, echoing moment. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” said Alice, thickly. “I’ll b-be fine. I’m fine. Please don’t get Frank.”

“We won’t.” Hermione fidgeted, and then reached out, touching her hand very lightly to Alice’s back. Alice flinched as if she’d been struck, but did not move away.

“Who did that to your wrist?” said Lily. Alice squeezed her eyes shut.

“Could you get some gillywater for her?” said Hermione, as next to her, Alice trembled. “Or—or firewhiskey or something?”

Lily looked at Hermione—Hermione mouthed,  _ Please _ —and then said, “I’ll be right back.” She let the door swing shut with a creak, and Hermione could only hope she would not tell Fabian about this. She didn’t think Lily would, but—concern could override even the strongest of instincts. 

She rubbed Alice’s back, and waited in silence.

Alice took deep breaths, slowly. Her hands curled tighter around the edges of the porcelain sink. Her nails, Hermione realized, were bitten. There was a scar on the underside of her arm that looked like she’d been cut with a knife; wire-thin and old, white against her pale skin. Hermione had never seen it before. Alice saw her looking, and drew her arm close against her chest to hide it.

“Alice,” said Hermione, and Alice closed her eyes. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

Alice swayed on her heels. She sniffed. Tears rolled down her cheeks like threads of silver.

“Alice—”

“Barty’s my cousin,” said Alice. She sniffed again, and Hermione silently Summoned a roll of toilet paper so Alice could blow her nose. Alice did not take it. “He’s—I was—I was talking to Frank—and—”

She warbled a little, and fell quiet. Hermione took a bit of toilet paper off the roll, and handed it to her. Alice dabbed a little at her eyes, and shook.

“I’m not—good at—” She waved her other hand, the one with the bruising around her wrist. “I’m—I’m not clever, you see, not—not like—Barty’s in Ravenclaw, he’s the smart one, him and my uncle, and—and I know that, I know I’m not clever, but—but just because I’m stupid doesn’t mean I’m—”

“Alice,” said Hermione weakly.

“Barty thinks that F-Frank is—” She heaved a gasp. “That Frank isn’t—isn’t serious about—isn’t as serious about me as I am a-about him and I—and I know I’m stupid and ugly and n-not good enough but—but I really—I thought he—”

“Alice,” said Hermione, “Alice, no, you’re not—you’re not stupid—”

“—and I d-don’t want him to s-see me like this when I’m—when I’m upset and B-Barty’s awful b-but I know he’s right—”

“Alice, he was  _ hurting you _ —”

“I just wanted t-to have one night where I could p-pretend—”

“He’s bullying you,” said Hermione. “That’s all Barty is, he’s a bully, you shouldn’t let him get to you—”

“H-He’s my cousin, he’s—”

“He’s  _ hurting you _ ,” said Hermione, and gripped Alice’s bruised wrist, turning her hand palm up. “And if he does it again—”

“Don’t,” wailed Alice, and yanked her hand away. “Don’t, don’t, if he knows you saw for sure then he’ll h-hurt you too—”

“I can take care of myself—”

Alice wailed again, and shook her head from side to side. She seemed to have lost her capacity to speak. Hermione took a deep breath, and then put an arm around Alice’s shoulders, unsure of what else to do. Alice seemed to be getting close to hysterical; taking her out of the bathroom would make it worse, make it more likely someone would see, but staying  _ in  _ the bathroom would be no help either. It was too damp, too cold, too dark. She rubbed Alice’s back, her vision blurring, as Alice hiccupped, over and over, frantically trying to stifle herself. What she should do, she thought, is march back into the party and give Barty Crouch Jr. the magical thrashing of his life, but she was fairly sure if she did that she’d wind up with a year’s detention, if not expulsion, and that would mean Alice would have no one left.

Lily didn’t know. Of that, Hermione was sure. Nor did Frank—if Frank had known Barty was being cruel to Alice, he’d have hexed him, Head Boy or not. No, Frank did not know. None of them had. She’d just thought Alice jumpy, shy; like Neville. She should have remembered why Neville was so jumpy, so shy, so sure he wasn’t clever, wasn’t good enough. No one, she thought, could grow up with someone filling their head with poison, and not take at least some of it in.

“Alice,” said Hermione, keeping her voice quiet. If she didn’t, she’d scream. “Will you promise me something?”

Alice peeked at her through her bangs, still sniffling. Her nose was red and swollen.

“Will you promise me that if Barty comes to try and talk to you like that again, you’ll tell me?”

She went white. “Hermione, if he knows—”

“He won’t know I know,” Hermione said, still in that low voice. She rubbed Alice’s back. “But will you  _ promise me _ that if he talks to you like that again, or hurts you again, you’ll tell me?”

Alice would not look at her. She stared at the floor, at the grimy sink. Then—she took a breath, casting her eyes up to the ceiling, and nodded. Hermione pulled her into a hug, and said no more.


	11. Room B-104

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs for:  
> >mentions of abuse (Alice, Sirius)  
> >discussion of administrative ineffectiveness (around abuse / abuse of power)  
> >mentions of racism  
> >discussion of loss of parents  
> >discussion of cancer, hiding deadly illness, and grief  
> >references to anti-Semitism / the anti-Semitic nightmare of JKR's goblins  
> >textbook-based propaganda (idk how else to describe it but essentially: winners write and rewrite history and it's REALLY frustrating to read the truth after being fed one story your whole life)  
> >classism  
> >published soft porn (seventies magazine covers, you know what I mean)  
> >discussion of trauma (fight/flight/freeze, the physiological impact/effect of trauma, etc)  
> >t h e r a p y  
> >reproductive trauma/pregnancy & childbirth trauma

For a long, intangible moment after she woke, Hermione could not remember where she was. She had been dreaming—not of Sirius, older Sirius’s, death, which was her most common nightmare, but of that strange in-between place the Orbis had brought her to, and the woman with no proper face. The faceless woman had been repeating herself, over and over again— _línan er yfir, línan er hafin_ —and Hermione, who had little patience with mysterious, presumably magical portents even when conscious, was now feeling annoyed and somewhat lost. She pulled her notebook out from beneath the mattress and wrote the phrase down—she could look it up in the library later—before noticing the small pile of gifts at the end of her four-poster bed, the soft, growing light of a snowy dawn through the window, and the memory of the night before came crashing down.

She had not gone to the Yule Ball. She hadn’t had the energy. After Lily had returned—Remus on her heels, and Fabian trailing behind them both like a massive puppydog—Hermione had gone to excuse herself from the Slug Club and walk Alice back to her Common Room. She had been able to glean no more of Barty’s behavior from Alice before Alice had slipped away. It was not for lack of trying. Alice simply seemed too tired—too numb, almost—to talk about it anymore, and Hermione tried not to push. She did not know what to do. The only person she had known with such a poor relationship with their family had been Harry, and Harry spoke so little about the Dursleys that it was impossible to bring them up with any subtlety. Well, and Sirius, but Sirius’s family had been entirely dead when she’d first met him, not alive and bruising him up at parties. Either way, she thought, somewhat darkly, it was a moot point now. She ought to tell a teacher—but when she broached even the idea of it with Alice, Alice had turned so milky pale and gripped her fingers so hard that Hermione had almost yipped.

“Please,” she’d said, “please don’t, it’ll just make it worse, please don’t tell—”

“Alice—”

“Hermione. _Please_.”

She hadn’t been able to say no.

Hermione shut her notebook again, a wee stubby pencil she’d found at Russet House trapped between pages, and sat up. There had been no point in going back to the lunch after being away from it for so long with Alice, but she’d returned just for a few minutes, to say goodbye to Marlene and Magda. Remus and Lily had both found her almost immediately, full of questions—Lily especially—but Hermione had just shook her head and hissed _later_ , and Remus, at least, had nodded. 

Speaking with Frank had been harder. It was all she could do to convince him that Alice was ill, and he’d been so genuinely concerned that Hermione had almost broken to pieces. Whatever Alice had thought about Frank, and Frank’s perspective on their date at the Slug Club, the worry that had come to roost in his face hadn’t just been the kind of concern a Head Boy had for another student. _He’s a bit more_ — _shall we say_ — _Wonderland inclined_ , indeed. 

Two beds over, Lily rolled onto her stomach and let out a snore worthy of Harry Potter. Mary, Hermione realized with a start, had not returned to the dormitory; her bed was untouched, just as she’d left it after changing into her dress robes for the Yule Ball. Hermione found her wand on her bedside table, and cast a glowing sphere of light into the air above her bedspread. She must have stayed out with her girlfriend. On the top of the pile at the end of her bed—the Hogwarts elves had been busy, she thought, and her stomach turned over with nerves and guilt—were gifts marked in Marlene and Magda’s hand, each wrapped in blue paper and patterned with gently drifting silver snowflakes. They sparkled, a little, in the reflection from the globe of light. She picked up one of them, the one from Magda, and held it in her lap without opening it. 

It was her first Christmas without her parents. Her first Christmas at Hogwarts without Harry and Ron. The absence of anything from them, any card, any book, left a heavy weight in her stomach. She’d known it would hurt, knowing they were—well—but it was different to _feel_ it, like her bones were made of iron and her blood, ice. Even unwrapping Magda’s gift, an elegant wrist-holster for her wand, did not help. She looked at it for a while, tears welling up in her eyes, before carefully folding the wrapping paper up and setting it aside for reuse. The next gift—from Marlene; a second never-ending notebook with the inscription of _just in case_ in the front cover—had the tears overflowing. She sat there, sniffling, notebook in her lap, until there was a stirring in the next bed over.

“’mi-nee?” Lily lifted her head, hair all tousled, eyes bleary with sleep. She sounded exactly like Harry, in that moment. “Whassit.”

Hermione shook her head, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, putting the gifts aside. The rest could be left for later. “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

“Mmkay,” said Lily, and her head dropped back to the pillow with a thump. She was asleep again immediately. Hermione was fairly certain she’d never properly woken at all. Hermione found a sweater hanging on the back of her desk chair, pulled it on—one of Marlene’s old ones, thick wool with sleeves that she had to roll back to have it fit—and padded her way downstairs.

It wasn’t even fully past dawn, and she had expected the Common Room to be empty and silent. Instead, Remus Lupin was settled on one of the couches closest to the fireplace, a heavy, home-knitted wool blanket thrown over his lap. His pajamas were ragged at the cuffs, just like his dress robes, and his hair was sticking up at the back like he’d just woken. He turned to blink at her, scars pulling tight across his face. “Hermione,” he said after a moment. “You’re up early.”

Hermione’s eyes were red and her nose was puffy, and she was _certain_ he could tell she’d been crying. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Her bare feet were aching with the chill of the stone steps. “Sorry,” she said. “Did you—sleep down here?”

Remus flushed an awkward red. “Uh,” he said. Then, seeming to bite the bullet: “Yeah. The others wanted to stay up late talking about the Ball. I—had a headache.”

“Oh,” said Hermione.

“I could have Silenced my curtains, I suppose, but I just—” He shrugged. “Felt awkward.” Then: “You can stay if you like. I was just thinking.”

“I don’t want to disturb you.”

“Hermione,” said Remus, sounding just slightly exasperated. “You don’t disturb me. It’s fine. Please sit down.”

She wavered. Then—determined, because she was _not_ a coward, she was a Gryffindor, after all—she marched forward and sat on the empty space by the arm of the sofa, keeping her knees tucked up against her chest. It was closest to the fire, and she’d wanted to sit on this couch anyway, and if Remus was going to invite her, she would damn well sit. Remus shifted a little, and put his feet on the cushions. His socks were darned in four places.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he said, after a moment. Hermione shrugged.

“I stayed up late thinking about Alice and then—nightmares.”

He nodded, and turned to look at the fire again. “She all right?”

“I think so.” Hermione rested her chin on her knees, wishing she’d thought to run a comb through her hair before coming down the stairs. “At least, she seemed a little better when I walked her back to the Hufflepuff Common Room.”

Remus made a thoughtful noise. “Was it Barty?”

Hermione blinked at him.

“Peter hears things,” said Remus. “He—fancied Alice a long time. He asked around.”

Something hot and vicious swelled up her throat. _Peter._ She should have known. “He knew Barty was hurting her and he didn’t _say_ anything to anybody?”

“No,” said Remus, hurriedly. “No, he didn’t—he didn’t know for sure. He suspected, but he didn’t know. But Sirius mentioned that Barty Junior wanted to speak to Alice last night, and it…wasn’t difficult to put two and two together after I saw her wrist.”

Hermione put her face in her hands for a moment. She brushed her hair back up, out of her eyes. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “She made me promise not to speak to a teacher, but—”

“Teachers wouldn’t do anything,” he said. His mouth twisted. “It’s family business. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t already know.”

Her guts churned. It was _exactly_ what she hadn’t wanted to hear. It was exactly the thing wizards _always_ seemed to tell her. _They like it, Hermione. It’s normal, Hermione. That’s how purebloods are, Hermione. Stop making such a fuss, Hermione._ “That’s _barbaric_. He almost broke her wrist—”

“It’s family business,” said Remus again. “Pureblood families like the Crouches can—her uncle is on the Hogwarts board. He’s in the Ministry of Magic.”

“That shouldn’t _matter_ ,” she said, but she thought of Winky, and how brutally she’d been treated by the Crouches, how nobody had cared because she was _just an elf_ , _Hermione_ , and wanted to cry. “It shouldn’t matter that he’s in the Ministry, his son is _horrible to her_ , she’s supposed to be his _niece_ —”

“And nobody will believe anything bad about him,” he said. “Barty Junior is brilliant, and even worse he’s a good liar. _Nobody_ will believe her, or you, Hermione. She’s almost three years older than him, they’d think she was making it up. Or if they do believe her, they’ll just say they can’t do anything about it, and Alice might get in _more_ trouble with her uncle and cousin for saying anything about it to anybody.”

She _fumed._ “What kind of _justice_ is that—”

“It’s _not_ justice,” he said, and his mouth thinned out. “And it makes me angry too, don’t think I’m not. But—trust me, Hermione. I’ve—this has happened before. Things like this. It’s not my story to tell, it’s really not, but there’s not a great deal the teachers can _do_. Especially when the family’s pureblood.”

 _Sirius_ , Hermione thought, and her heart hurt. Of course. Harry had told her that Sirius moved in with James Potter and his family when they were sixteen because of—what’d Sirius called it? _A fight with his mum._ A fight so bad he’d never been back to Grimmauld Place again. She’d thought back then it was just—verbal war, like how Sirius and the portrait of Mrs. Black would go at each other like cats and dogs, but—maybe—she swallowed.

“Oh,” she said.

Remus searched her face. If he realized she’d put it together, he didn’t say. He just sighed. “The school won’t do anything,” he said. “We just have to try to keep her away from him, keep her safe. Mitigate the damage. That’s all.”

“That’s not fair,” she said. “It’s not her fault, it shouldn’t be on her to stay away from him—”

“No,” he said. “It’s not fair. But until things change, that’s the way it has to be.”

She digested that, and hid her face between her knees.

“Hermione,” said Remus, and he sounded frantic. “Please don’t cry—”

“I’m not crying,” she said, though her eyes were stinging terribly. “I’m angry.”

“Okay,” said Remus after a moment.

He let her be, after that. Hermione sat there, her toes turning gradually to blocks of ice, pressing her face into her knees and thinking things through. It wasn’t fair, she thought, that Alice would have no help from teachers. But—she had to laugh, just a little, raw and angry and aching inside—teachers hadn’t been particularly useful for her the last few years anyway. It felt almost sacrilegious to consider that, but it was true. Whenever they’d _really_ needed help, her and Harry and Ron, they’d had to do it themselves. Teachers, she thought, had not done much at all. Not for Ginny when Voldemort had been in her head, not for Harry when the Goblet had chosen him for the Tournament, not for the elves who ran the castle without pay and without kindness, not for Hagrid, expelled for something he did not do, not for Myrtle dead in the bathroom and no one to miss her. Not for Cedric. Barty Crouch had Polyjuiced himself to be Moody, and no one had noticed. Not even Dumbledore had noticed. Why did she keep falling back on trusting teachers to help, when they did nothing but plaster over the cracks in the facade?

“What are you doing awake?” she said after a while. “It’s barely dawn. Did one of the first years come down early?”

“No,” he said. Remus glanced at her, and then looked back at the fire. “I was thinking about my mam, actually.”

“Oh,” said Hermione. She unfolded, just slightly. “I shouldn’t have interrupted you, I can—”

“It’s okay,” he said again. “I don’t mind.” Then, wryly: “Better you than James, right now. He’ll just want to go over the Ball again, and—I dunno. He doesn’t have a clue what to do when I talk about it.”

Hermione frowned, and said nothing.

“It’s not his fault,” said Remus. “His parents might be older, but they’re both alive. And—Sirius hates his parents for good reason, he can’t imagine missing any of them, really. Although—” 

He stopped.

“Although?”

“Nothing.” Remus frowned before rubbing his palms on his blanket. “Just—it’s his business.” 

She nodded, slowly. The rotting hand on the Orbis Sanguis came to her again, its shift to a faint and noxious green. Maybe Sirius knew, after all. 

“And then Peter—I dunno.” Remus blew bangs out of his eyes. Peter’s mam died when he was little, he only ever had his dad and his auntie growing up, and they’re both fine. So. I don’t blame them for not knowing what to say.”

“Still,” said Hermione. She tried to keep her spite under control. It still bit at her, nasty as a pixie. “They should _try_.”

“They do,” said Remus. “Or they do their best, anyway.”

Clearly, she thought, their best wasn’t good enough. Then again—she counted backwards from ten, trying to get herself to breathe—they weren’t…they hadn’t grown up with Harry Potter as their best friend. Likely none of them had had to deal with one of their friends losing a friend or family member before, let alone a parent. Still, she thought, frowning, they should at least _talk_ about it. Boys never _talked_ about anything, and it drove her batty.

“You can talk to me, you know,” she said, after a moment. Remus turned, his eyes round as coins. “You—you said I could talk to you about my parents. That means you can talk to me about your mam. If you want.” She swiped her fingers along the corners of her eyes, dashing away the damp. “Besides, you—well. You heard why _I’m_ awake. Part of it, anyway.” 

He didn’t say anything. Remus simply looked at her, for a long, long time, before he wordlessly lifted the wooly blanket. Hermione tucked her feet under it—her toes barely brushed against the leg of his pajamas—and sighed.

“I woke up and realized this was my first Christmas without a letter from my parents,” she said. She rested her cheek to the cushions. “And—I got—I was upset. That’s why I came down. It’s—maybe it’s silly.”

“It’s not silly,” said Remus to his knees. “It’s why I couldn’t sleep. She died in January, so—this is the first—my first, too.”

Hermione pressed the balls of her feet into his leg, and didn’t reply. For once, she couldn’t think what to say.

“My mam would make bara brith on Christmas Eve,” he said, suddenly. “Every year. We’d have it with coffee in the morning. Usually we’d unwrap half the gifts the night before cause that’s how she grew up, and the other half in the morning, cause that’s how my dad learned it. It was terrible when I was little. I had to wait all night.”

Hermione propped her elbow on the cushions of the sofa. He turned, and watched the fire for a bit.

“What sort of bara brith?” she said after a while.

“Earl Grey and currants for other days,” said Remus. “Lady Grey and candied orange peel for Christmas. She’d soak the peel for a full day in the tea to get it flavored properly. She said she’d teach me when she could trust me not to burn the bread.”

“Your mam sounds lovely,” said Hermione softly.

“She quit insurance when I was about twelve and started to work in the local café because it was closer,” he said. “People loved her. We’re from near Aber, but a little outside, bit of a drive from any of the shops and—and well-settled areas. So—everyone in the village knew her. She’d bike from the cottage down to the main street to open every morning and she knew everyone.”

His voice was raw, and rough. Hermione thought there might be dampness on his cheeks. When he turned, though, she couldn’t make it out anymore. Remus smoothed his hands over the blanket on his knees, and fell quiet.

“My mum grew up in a pub,” said Hermione.

Remus blinked at her.

“She was Scottish,” she said. “From Peebles. And my dad was born in London, so they met when she was in university. He was fifteen years older and already had a dental clinic, and she was doing part-time work as a secretary while she was trying to get into medical school. My gran wasn’t happy at _all_ when they eloped, because—” Because her mum was black and Jamaican and her dad was white and from a very, very rich, proper family. But she didn’t need to go into that. “They really, really loved each other, so they didn’t care, they just—did it.”

He nodded. “My parents weren’t—” He stopped. “My dad said he told my mum he was a wizard before they got married. But my dad’s parents weren’t happy he was marrying a Muggle. It’s not like we’re—purebloods or anything, my dad’s side, but—my dad doesn’t talk to my grandparents. And—my mum’s parents died before I was born, car accident. So it’s just me and my dad now, really.”

Hermione prodded at him with her toes, and then shifted her legs to put her heels on his thigh, the way she might with Harry or Ron. Remus didn’t acknowledge it; he dropped a hand to her ankle to almost rock her foot back and forth, like a child playing with a hobby horse.

“My dad gave me storybooks when I was little,” said Hermione. “And then—I got a bit stroppy, I kept stealing his textbooks from dentistry college. So he bought me science books instead. And not baby ones, because I’d throw a tantrum. Science textbooks like you find in a library. I think I was about four.”

Remus snorted. Hermione dug her heel in. “Sorry,” he said, but he was still smiling a little. “Just—they must have been about as big as you were.”

“They were bigger,” said Hermione. Her throat closed up for a moment, and her eyes blurred. She sniffed. “My dad keeps—kept a photograph of me in his wallet of me with one of them, and I could barely hold it up. But I taught myself how to read with them. And—and I drove my primary school teachers mad, I’d correct everyone’s spelling before they got a chance to even try. I was a little beast.”

“I didn’t go to primary school.” Remus swayed her foot back and forth, not seeming to notice what he was doing. “I—started doing magic when I was small. Turned all the curtains and clothes in my bedroom purple after a nightmare. My dad was—happy. They—weren’t sure if I was going to be a wizard, not at first. I didn’t—you’re never sure. And I think—I think it hurt my mam that he was so excited about it. She never talked about it but—but when my dad told the story to his friends at dinner parties she’d look—upset.”

“Remus,” said Hermione. Her throat ached. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right.” Remus didn’t look at her. “I’m not—not very close. With my dad. He was always working. So—Mam taught me to read. She brought all these Muggle books home from the secondhand shop and she’d read them to me at night and help me learn to spell. Maths too. She said even if—even if I could magic my way out of trouble I still needed to learn my times tables because who knew what kind of magic could do maths for me.”

“I think my parents wanted me to go to Oxford,” said Hermione. “They—they weren’t unhappy when Beauxbatons sent a teacher to explain what I was, it—helped them understand why I could—do things. But they weren’t—they had a plan for me, I think. And me being a witch didn’t fit into it.”

He nodded.

“I didn’t go home for Christmas last year,” said Hermione. “My—friend’s—dad, he—got hurt. Really badly hurt. And I thought—I thought my friends needed me more than my mum and dad. I—I didn’t stay home for Christmas.”

Remus turned. His hand tightened on her ankle. Hermione looked away from him, at the tapestries on the wall. One of her favorite tapestries in Gryffindor Tower was one of the smaller ones, a piece on centaurs and stars. The centaur looked back at her from the weave, and then turned and galloped out of the border.

“I barely ever went home for holidays,” she said. Her throat was tighter now, and her tongue sticky. “I—I would stay with friends instead. I didn’t—have—friends, when I was little, my—my parents were—” She swallowed. “But after I started at—school—I had—I had friends. I had two—two _best_ friends.”

“The ones that James and Sirius remind you of,” said Remus. Hermione wiped her eyes.

“Yes.” 

Remus turned, and said, “What were their names?”

Hermione couldn’t help it. She hiccupped.

“Um,” she said, eloquently. “Henri. And—and Reynard.”

He nodded after a while.

“They were my first friends,” she said. “I’d never had friends. In school I was too—swotty. And once we became friends I was so—”

She trailed off.

“Happy,” said Remus, softly. There was a look on his face she couldn’t decipher, something that reminded her so much of the Professor Lupin from her world that she actually started to cry. Hermione wiped the tears off her face with the back of one hand, and looked away from him. “You were happy.”

“I can’t even write them anymore,” said Hermione. “They think I’m dead. And—and it sounds so selfish, my parents were—were wonderful and loving and—and my _friends,_ but they didn’t understand magic. They—they were always so excited to learn what I was doing but they couldn’t—they didn’t _understand_ it. They _couldn’t_. And—things were just getting worse with—with Voldemort and anti-Muggleborn propaganda, and—I had to keep so much of my _life_ from them. And I—I wanted to tell them but I didn’t—I knew it would frighten them, what—happens at a magic school. What’s happening _now,_ with the war. And now I can’t—can’t ever tell them anything, ever again. And maybe if I’d—if I’d _told them_ what was happening then maybe they’d be—”

Maybe they would forgive her for vanishing. Maybe they would be able to understand the hows and whys. Maybe they wouldn’t have lost her to Hogwarts and to the fight against Voldemort. Maybe they wouldn’t have to linger in the knowledge that she was gone, and not coming back, and they wouldn’t have even known she was fighting anything at all. She couldn’t say anything else. Hermione bit her tongue, and fumbled around for a handkerchief. She didn’t have one—of _course_ she didn’t—but she did find a sheet of parchment, which she transfigured. She couldn’t look at Remus anymore. She hadn’t _meant_ to blurt all that out. It’d just—emerged, fully formed. Like some kind of rancid pustule.

“My mam didn’t tell me she was sick,” said Remus after a while. There was a scar just under his hairline that she’d never noticed before, razor thin and silvery. “She didn’t want me to know. My parents—kept it. From me. She finally wrote me about—about three weeks before she died. Told me what was happening. And I—I came home and she didn’t—her hair had all fallen out. She was thin, and—she looked broken, almost. Like a skeleton. And my dad knew, the whole time, and didn’t tell me. They both kept it from me until—until it was almost too late to say goodbye.”

Hermione bit the inside of her cheek. “ _Remus._ ”

“Lung cancer,” he said, awkwardly, and looked away from her. His hands curled into fists on his knees. “Magic—helped, for a while, but it couldn’t—stop it. She died over the winter holiday. Two days after New Year’s.”

In a week, Hermione realized. It was Christmas Day. And in a little over a week it would be the first anniversary of Remus’s mother’s death, and here he was, comforting _her._ Hermione drew her knees up to her chest, and set her bare feet on the floor. Remus jerked—almost as if he thought she was going to kick him—and then froze when she shifted around to lean her head to his shoulder and worm her arm between his back and the sofa cushions. She was a huggy person by nature, she thought—her parents had been very physically affectionate, with her, with each other—but Harry and Ron had been the opposite. Harry treated almost every physical touch like a blow was incoming, even years out from the Dursleys—hate curdled her stomach, even from a universe and decades away—and Ron was simply _nervous_ and awkward; every hug she’d given Ron had been accompanied by a _gerroff, Hermione_ , like she was embarrassing him. Remus shuddered a little when she touched him, and then his arm came up around her shoulders, tugging her against him like he needed it. She’d only meant to hug him for a moment, but then the moment passed and another started and he still hadn’t let go, so Hermione rested her head to his shoulder and remained there in silence.

“I didn’t want to go home for the holidays this year,” he said. “I don’t—my dad’s in Yorkshire, in his old cottage, but we haven’t—talked much since she died. We weren’t close, even before, but after she—I dunno. I spent most of last summer at James’s. And I didn’t—I’m not ready to go back yet.” 

She nodded. She wanted to say _I wouldn’t be either_ , but she couldn’t get her voice to work.

“Sorry.” His voice cracked. “Didn’t—mean to natter. I don’t—talk about it much.”

“You didn’t natter,” said Hermione softy. “It’s all right.”

He was quiet for a while.

“I miss them,” she said. She felt tears trickling down her cheeks, and, for once, ignored them. “My parents.”

It was too much to say anything more. Still, she didn’t feel like she _had_ to, really. She shut her eyes, and dug her nails into the fabric of his pajamas. Remus tightened his arm around her, though, and held on, awkwardly rubbing his palm up and down the sleeve of her wool sweater.

“I have an idea,” he said, after a moment. He let go of her. “Can I show you something?”

Hermione blinked. “Show me what?”

Remus’s mouth went crooked. He stole the blanket back, folding it over his arm, and stood. “Go get dressed,” he said. “And wear a coat, it’s chilly.”

Hermione, bemused, said, “Remus, it’s barely dawn.”

“And first years are going to come rushing down with gifts here in a minute,” he says. His expression flickered. “If you’d rather—”

“No, I’ll get dressed.” She grouched back to her feet. “You don’t have to be so _mysterious_ about it, that’s all I’m saying—”

“Where’s the fun if I’m not?” he said, and made his way to the stairs to the boys’ tower. 

She was back downstairs within ten minutes, having managed to tame her hair enough to put on one of her own elf hats and wrap two scarves around her neck. Remus took a bit longer—she could hear James’s laughter echoing down the stairs as Remus finally clattered back into the Common Room, looking a bit flustered and harried, his winter cloak unfastened. “Come on,” he said, and Hermione followed him out into the corridor, down the hall towards the stairs.

She had an inkling of where they might be going—the grounds, the greenhouses maybe—but they passed the quickest path to the Great Hall without turning. Instead, they stopped by a mirror on the fourth floor, and Remus looked around before reaching up to unhook something behind the frame. “Come on,” he said again, looking pleased with himself, and then pulled the mirror back to reveal a small door, only about Hermione’s height. “Before someone sees.”

“You’re joking,” said Hermione flatly. Remus’s grin widened, into something that really ought to be smacked off his face. She didn’t have the heart. “Remus.”

“Hermione,” he said, looking like he was trying not to laugh. “You’re not scared of the dark, are you?”

“Scared of the—absolutely _not_.” She glared at the mirror. “Does this go off the grounds?”

“ _Hermione,_ ” he said again. “I told you, it’s a surprise.”

She wasn’t sure if she was trying not to laugh or fighting the urge to shout at him. “Remus Lupin,” she said. “You. Are. A. _Prefect_.”

“Marauder first,” he said, with a wicked little crook to his mouth. “Are you coming?”

Hermione glanced back up the hall towards the stairs. Then—“Oh, bother it,” she said, and brushed past him into the little corridor. It was so close around her that the stone brushed her shoulders. “Scared of the dark. _Scared of the dark_ , my giddy aunt. Where are we even going?”

He didn’t bother to answer her. Remus lit his wand with a quick _Lumos_ , and swung the mirror shut behind them. He had to bend forward like an orangutan to not hit his head on the ceiling. He was so stupidly tall, she thought, oddly angry about it. Almost a foot taller than she was. Taller than Ron, even. “It’ll open up in a second.”

It did. The small passage gave way to a wide, clear room, albeit a dusty one. Hermione had a vague memory of Sirius mentioning a passage behind a mirror, one that might have been a good place for D.A. lessons. Harry said it had caved in, but clearly it hadn’t yet. The walls were painted with patterns that she couldn’t make out, and in the corner someone had stacked old books and scrolls. “Filch,” Remus said, and straightened, brushing dust off his cloak. “He keeps things in here. Better than a broom closet. No firsties to nick broomsticks and try flying spells on them.”

“Oh,” said Hermione. Then: “You have spiderwebs in your hair.”

Remus batted at his head. “That’s the way out,” he said, and pointed across the wide room to another passage, this one wider and taller. “If you’re all right with a bit of a walk.”

Hermione scowled at him. “This _does_ lead off the grounds, doesn’t it?”

“Technically.” He looked at her. “There’s a fork in the path.”

“Remus, if we get caught, we’ll get in trouble—”

“We won’t,” he said. “We’re not going to Hogsmeade.”

She fretted. “But—”

“I’m not going to get you in trouble,” said Remus. “Especially not on Christmas. I promise, Hermione. Just—trust me.”

She did trust him. She’d kiss a frog before she admitted it, at the moment, but she did. Hermione blew her hair out of her eyes. “Fine,” she said, after a moment. “Lead the way.”

Remus lit up. He gestured towards the far wall. “We’re going to take the right hand passage at the fork,” he said. “And we should hurry, we don’t want to miss it.”

“Miss what?”

“You’ll _see._ ”

Hermione, for once, gave up arguing.

The passage sloped so sharply downward it was a miracle they didn’t slip. Then, once they came to the fork and took the right-hand passage it evened out. She had the vaguest sense that it was moving in a broad curve—not going under the lake, she didn’t think, though it was certainly dark and damp enough. Perhaps around, or through a shallower portion of it. Remus kept his wand up, casting light over the passage ahead of them. He walked quickly enough that she almost had to jog, at times, to keep up. Her lungs burned. Algae, slick and green, coated the ceiling of the tunnel. Then, slowly, the floor sloped up again, in a much gentler incline. Time seemed to slip through her fingers, beat by beat.

“Here,” said Remus, after what felt like an eternity, and stopped so suddenly Hermione almost walked right into his back. When she peered around him, she could just barely make out a roughshod wooden door. He turned to her, and said, “Cover your eyes.”

“Remus, this is absurd—”

“Come on, Hermione,” he said. “It’s supposed to be a surprise.”

She sighed. Hermione put one hand over her eyes, and said, “You’d better not push me in a snowbank, Remus Lupin.”

“I promise, I won’t,” he said. There was a creak, and a blast of cold air against her face as he opened the door. Light pierced the spaces between her fingers, shining bright in tongues of orange and gold. A chilly, half-gloved hand found her elbow, guided her forward into the snow. Branches creaked over her head with the weight of ice and frozen sleet.

“There,” said Remus, after she’d walked perhaps thirteen steps. “Now—open your eyes.”

It’d been so dark in the tunnel that what little light there was reflecting off the snow blinded her. Hermione had to blink water from her eyes for almost a full minute before her vision cleared from the dark tunnel. They’d come directly out of the trunk of a tree, one with a door carved almost imperceptibly into the wood. A handful of steps away was the edge of the Black Lake, cracking with ice and patterned with snow.

It was a ruin, she thought. A stone foundation for a small house, one wall still standing, the rest falling apart and dusted with snow as thin as caster sugar. It was roughly three meters long on each side, with a single line of stones splitting it neatly in two. Two rooms, maybe. They’d emerged from the tunnel on the far side of the lake from the grounds, and she could make out Hagrid’s hut perched in a snowbank if she shaded her eyes. Hermione touched the nearest stone with two fingers.

“I think it’s an old gamekeeper's hut,” said Remus. “There’s a Hogwarts crest on a few of the stones.”

“How did you find it?” She wiped snow off the top of one of the roughshod stones. There was a crack down the center, and soot. Part of the chimney, maybe. She looked back up at Remus. “How did you know it was here?”

“I wandered a lot, first year,” he said. He scuffed his trainer through the snow. “I didn’t really make friends with James and the others until we were in second year, so I spent a lot of time reading and poking my nose in places I shouldn’t. It’s how I found the mirror passage.”

Hermione brushed more snow off the stones. Someone had carved the initials _X.S._ into the closest one. “I can’t remember there being any mention of an old hut in _Hogwarts: A History_. I wonder if there are records in—”

“Hermione,” said Remus, and when she looked up at him, he pointed across the lake. “We made it in time.”

The sun was rising behind Gryffindor Tower. Deep in the winter, sunrises were slow and viscous over Hogwarts. From across the lake, the sun framed the castle in perfect beams of light, illuminating the massive snowbanks, the shadows on the rocky hill, the ripples in the Black Lake. It looked like magic, she thought, and stood, snow melting against the fingers of her gloves. Over the top of the castle, owls fluttered in circles, like so many flecks of snow. They were coming in for the day, most of them. Some were carrying lumpy packages. Christmas gifts from families outside Hogwarts. Then—she drew a sharp breath. The light burst between the Gryffindor and Astronomy Towers, almost like a firework. All of it put together, the sun, the snow, the lake, the trees, was near-blinding. She couldn’t look away.

“What do you think?” Remus’s voice was hushed, as if by speaking too loud the sun would vanish.

“It’s beautiful.” Hermione’s eyes watered. She wiped her cheeks with the back of her glove. She couldn’t say much more. Her insides ached too much. She thought she knew everything about Hogwarts, but this—she’d never quite seen it like this, ghostly and colorful at once. “It’s—”

She trailed off. Remus looked to the castle, tucking his hands under his arms to thaw his fingers. His hair flushed almost blonde in the light of the sunrise.

“Yeah,” he said.

There was nothing else to be said.

.

.

.

The morning of the eighth of January found Hermione in the library, a dictionary of Old Norse open in front of her, the Orbis Sanguis sitting beside a stack of books on the Goblin Rebellions.

This research, she thought, was long overdue for a review. With Lily and Mary spending most of their time catching up on homework she’d already finished, Remus having retreated to spend time with Sirius and James and Peter around the Christmas holidays, Alice hiding in the Hufflepuff Common Room, and the rest of the school chattering about the Marauder prank during the Yule Ball, even more than a week after it happened—apparently it had involved transforming all of the painstakingly decorated ice sculptures into living, galloping creatures, one of which had used an impressive rack of antlers to ram Mulciber full in the backside—she could really dig into the stacks and take matters into her own hands. 

She’d started doing it months ago, but she’d been putting off reviewing and re-checking her notes for weeks. She’d been relying too much on Unspeakable Croaker’s ability to give her answers, she thought. She’d been trusting other people to answer her questions for her, when she should have done what she always did, like what she’d done with the Polyjuice Potion and wiht the Basilisk and with the D.A., and rely on books and her own brain. 

Not that books could _always_ be reliable, especially books written by witches and wizards about goblins. There was enough disgusting propaganda about goblins out there as it was without her dipping her toe into some of the nastier tomes written at the height of the wizard-goblin wars. She didn’t need to read about how goblins craved dominion over wizards and did it through controlling money; the fact that goblins were legally banned from gaining any other sort of employment in the wizarding world _outside_ of Gringotts was a conveniently forgotten fact for people like Barnaby Fudge. It made her sick to read it, and it reminded her so much of some of the treatises she’d read on the War, of the rise and conflagration of anti-Semitism around Europe, that she had to wonder if there wasn’t some overlap somewhere, between anti-goblinists and anti-Semitics. Bigots did, after all, tend to flock together, regardless of magical ability.

Hermione remembered the article Luna’s father had published, about Cornelius Fudge cooking goblins into pies. It was…less impossible now that she’d read Fudge’s grandfather’s horrifically speciesist manifesto, now that she considered it properly. She should never have laughed at Luna as often as she had.

The greenish arrow on the Orbis had gone infected. She wasn’t entirely sure how else to describe it. The arrow engraved cuneiform mark _ur_ was almost completely overtaken by a slick, viscous substance that looked like green pus, which she could not clean away no matter how many spells she aimed at the thing. It was also pockmarked, as if the arrow were being gradually eaten away by acid. It did not seem to be rubbing off on any of the other arrows, and it was not damaging the inner workings of the Orbis, but it made her worry. Sirius was acting perfectly normal, to her knowledge of him, and she couldn’t exactly ask if one of his relatives had something wrong with them. More than that, she could _not_ explain how she knew about it, the Orbis, any of it. So, she’d retreated to books, not that they’d been much help. The only disease she could think of that involved green pus and pockmarks was Dragon Pox, but there was no news in any paper she could find of any member of the Black Family contracting it, not even in the gossip pages of _Witch Weekly_ , which she’d stolen off of Mary’s bed and read in secret at two in the morning.

Finding information about Orbi Sangui—she presumed that was the plural; her Latin was a bit rusty—was, perhaps, as frustrating as it had been attempting to find listings of Nicholas Flamel in first year. As transfixing as it was to read about the Goblin Wars of this universe (the way a car wreck or a decapitation was transfixing, in its horrific violence) there was little if anything about mentioned about any family’s Orbis Sanguis, aside from footnotes mentioning they’d been confiscated and destroyed. Notations on goblin artifacts being owned by goblins, and leased to wizards, matched what she remembered from History of Magic class. She even asked Professor Binns about the Goblin Uprising of 1879 in the first class after Halloween, but he pretended not to hear her question and floated away through the classroom wall. Which made sense in an odd way, she thought. Professor Binns had died in 1883; he likely remembered it, and did not want to talk about it. Nor were there many books that discussed the 1879 uprising much at all; it seemed to be a historical blip, without much discussion as to cause or ending.

The only book where she could find any proper recording of the incident was a piece in Bathilda Bagshot’s _The Making of the Ministry of Magic: A History of Lawmaking in Wizarding Great Britain_ , and even there, it amounted to no more than a paragraph on page 495. _A trio of Ministry wizards attending the yearly peace conferences between goblin and wizardkind in the Goblin City were found murdered in their beds and their wands stolen by goblin assassins. Despite attempts of the Minister of Magic, Faris “Spout-Hole” Spavin, to ease species tensions, goblins accused the wizards of having reneged on a pledge to trial by combat and the goblin government stood by the murderers and theft of wands, resulting in a violation of the 1485 Treaty of Smelt. The uprising lasted a total of nine months before it was quelled, resulting in the death of over two thousand wizards._

“And no mention of how many goblins died,” Hermione said, only half under her breath, and accidentally-on-purpose slammed the book shut, pushing it to the far edge of her work table. She had never been so _failed_ by Bathilda Bagshot. The woman could write hundreds of pages on the creation of a magic school, but just over a hundred words on a nine-month uprising that led to the deaths of countless people? It was _insulting_.

She had, at least, succeeded in one thing. _Línan er yfir, línan er hafin._ It was a fairly simplistic translation, once she managed to wrangle her way through the appropriate accents and sounded out the words into being able to spell them in runes on parchment. _The line is ended, the line is begun._ Presumably, she thought, it was about the Black family; Sirius in her world _had_ just fallen through the Veil between life and death when she’d spoken to the spirit, or whatever it had been in that in-between place. _The line is begun_ presumably implied her return to a world where the Black family and its magic still existed, though something about the phrasing irked her. It could just have easily been _línan er yfir, línan heldur áfram,_ the line continues. _The line is begun_ implied something she wasn’t sure she fully grasped.

“Bother it,” said Hermione, and stood, snatching up the book on ancient runes along with Bagshot’s _The Making of the Ministry of Magic_. It was possible that she’d gotten stupid after falling through a crack between worlds. Who knew what that magic had done to her insides, let alone her capacity to reason things through logically.

The shelves were mostly empty in the library, a blessing even if it was an expected one. Nobody but a few Ravenclaws would come in here over the holidays, and it meant she had more space to breathe, away from the Marauders, away from Lily and Mary (who, despite being lovely, were quite a lot to hear at times). She’d always done better with books, anyway. Hermione slid the runic dictionary back onto the shelf, and then aimed for the history section, wondering if she’d missed a book on goblin rebellions on her first, second, or third go-around. (Unlikely, but sometimes the shelves at Hogwarts hid things unless they thought you’d looked hard enough.)

“—do you think you’re doing, Black?”

Hermione stopped. It’d barely been a whisper, something she clearly wasn’t supposed to have heard. There was shuffling two rows over, near the entrance to the restricted section. It sounded, she thought, like Snape.

“None of your business,” replied another voice, this one younger, a little higher, all aristocratic London tones, nothing like Cokeworth. And certainly, she thought, _not_ Sirius’s voice. This was Regulus. “I don’t know what you want with me, Snape—”

“I’m trying to keep you from getting that girl _killed_ ,” said Snape, in a hissing voice, and Hermione almost dropped her book. “Do you have any idea what Avery and Mulciber would do if they knew you were still spending time with a—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Regulus coolly, and there was a moment of absolute silence. Then Snape’s laugh, curling, rusty, echoed down the row.

“You aren’t nearly so good at Occlumency as you think you are, Regulus—”

“Better than you, _Snivellus_ —”

“I am trying,” said Snape, “to _help you_. Whatever you might think of me—”

“What do you get out of _helping me_ , exactly?” Regulus sneered. Hermione rested her hand to the shelf, barely daring to breathe. “I’m not stupid, _Severus_. I know who you are, I know who your father is. I know where you come from. What is it you want in return for this precious advice of yours? A potioneer’s kit? A new pair of robes? Merlin knows you could use a pair that isn’t stained and darned in a dozen places—”

“A favor,” said Snape. His teeth were gritted so tight that it distorted his voice, making it a low and choppy snarl. “And if I were you, I’d keep an eye on that _friend_ of yours. From what I hear from Avery, her ride back to Hogwarts may not be as calm as you think it will be.”

There was a long, hushed silence.

“Noted,” said Regulus. His voice wound tight, and cracked. “You’ve got your favor, Snape. Now leave me the hell alone.”

With a whirl of his cloak, Snape left the library. If he saw her standing in the history section, he didn’t acknowledge her; he swept out of the room, batlike and furious, and shut the library door so hard that Madam Pince hissed like a cat. Regulus stood there for a long time, after, and Hermione did not dare move. Her breathing had gone shallow and she was _sure_ that she must be audible to everyone when Regulus said, “Fuck,” only half under his breath, and swept out of the library too.

She sagged against the shelves, put her head to the books on Bulgarian history, and shut her eyes.

.

.

.

It took Hermione all of twenty minutes to compose a short note to Marlene, thanking her again for coming to the Slug Club party and emphasizing not once but three times that _Mo and Mitzy must be careful on the train back to Hogwarts, I have a bad feeling about them traveling alone._ She couldn’t be clearer than that, at least, not to Marlene. A second note, this one even shorter, she dashed off to Mo. It read, _Warning came from R. BE CAREFUL ON TRAIN. & you and Mitzy meet me in the entrance hall when you get to the castle, I’ll be waiting for you._

If Marlene or Magda saw that one Mo would catch holy hell, but at least Hermione knew that Mo would take the warning more seriously if she knew it came from Regulus. By the time she’d marched up to the Owlery and posted both the notes, praying they’d get to Cornwall in time, it was almost three o’clock, and she had to report to Madam Pomfrey’s office for her appointment with Ted Tonks.

It had been decided via letter that Hermione would travel by Floo to Ted Tonks’s office at St. Mungo’s. Partly for confidentiality reasons—Madam Pomfrey was quite insistent that these meetings _not_ happen in her office—and partly because Hogwarts’ wards, to Hermione’s understanding, could let people _out_ but did not so easily let the unrecognized _in_. Hermione, as a student, was known to the wards. Ted, as a Healer in London, would not be. There was less potential for magical backlash if _she_ was the one to travel, so at five to three Hermione found herself pinching up some Floo Powder out of a little tin that Madam Pomfrey kept on the mantel of her fireplace.

“Ted’s lovely, dear,” said Madam Pomfrey, snapping the tin shut and putting it back in its place of honor. “I promise. It wasn’t very long ago that he was a student here, and I’ve never had cause to worry about his ability to keep confidentiality. Or his talents as a Healer, for that matter.”

“Right,” said Hermione, feeling distinctly queasy. She hated Floo Powder. “Thank you, Madam Pomfrey.”

Madam Pomfrey bustled about a bit, fixing things that didn’t need to be fixed on her desk. Then she reached out and cupped Hermione’s cheek, just for a moment. “It’ll be all right, dear,” she said. “Really. Mind healing is—well, it’s a conversation.”

“I’m not a very good conversationalist.”

“Nonsense,” said Madam Pomfrey briskly. She seemed to draw herself together again. “Now, shoo. Or you’ll be late.”

Hermione took a breath. She looked at the note in her hand again, reading it carefully, before she ducked into the fireplace and said, “St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Room B-104.”

If nothing else, Ted Tonks kept a clean fireplace. She only inhaled half the regular amount of soot and grime on her way out of it, accidentally walking right into the edge of what seemed to be a coffee table. A single window, high on the wall, looked onto street level. A basement office, she thought. There were only a few things in the room, a desk, a small sofa, an overstuffed bookshelf with both Muggle and wizarding textbooks, and a vase perched on the windowsill that was full of dried daffodils. On the coffee table, several very out of date copies of _Witch Weekly_ and _Quidditch Times_ sat, their covers flickering between articles on how to be a proper ally to Squibs, the benefits of a Cleansweep Three, and _how to keep your wizard wild for you: a seven step guide to proper sex magic_ accompanied by a topless witch blowing a kiss. Hermione turned that one over, for the sake of the woman’s modesty, and wondered why the papers in the seventies were so obsessed with topless women. The office seemed, she thought, more cozy than cluttered. It was also completely empty. There was a note pasted to the back of the door which read _Hermione_ in Ted’s script; she pulled it down.

_Hermione—_

_Apologies if I have not returned before 3pm; an unexpected meeting. If you arrive, please feel free to request tea, coffee, or water from the pitcher in the corner._

_—Ted_

Hermione frowned, but sat on the couch anyway. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was irked or not. Doctors, she thought, were supposed to be punctual. The coffee from the pitcher, at least, was good. And Ted had used an Oxford comma, which was a salve to her bad mood.

It was about three minutes after three when there was a clatter of keys at the door, and it opened. A tall, broad wizard with light brown hair slipped inside, his wand stuck behind his ear like a pencil, and a stack of parchment scrolls tucked under his right elbow. “Ah,” he said, and kicked the door shut behind him. “You must be—”

“Hermione Granger,” said Hermione, and stood, feeling awkward. Ted took his wand out from behind his ear, and gave it a little twirl, Vanishing the scrolls before they hit the floor. He stuck out his palm, then, and when Hermione shook it, she had the sense that she was holding onto a tough sort of marshmallow. His hands were very soft, but the grip was firm and polite, and he smiled a little, his eyebrows tucking in a self-deprecating sort of way.

“I’m so sorry I made you wait. There’s a new Healer in from Bulgaria giving talks on Black Cat Flu. They’ve done a number of studies out there regarding how it’s transmitted and what it is in particular about black cats that makes them carry it—but I’m sure you don’t want to hear about all of that.”

Hermione, thinking of newspapers from 1996, said, “I’ve read a little about Black Cat Flu, but I’m afraid I don’t know much. I’m taking Healing courses at Hogwarts, though. And—” She thought of Healer Chatwicke, and Edgar Bones, eyeing her curiously over his goblet. “I’m thinking about Healing as a career, actually.”

“That’s right, Poppy mentioned that. The course, not the career goals, but—I’d be happy to discuss that with you, if you want.” He took off his outer robes, hanging them on a hook beside the door, and pulled his chair away from his desk, sitting down with a creak. Ted was _massive_ ; he had to be at least six feet tall, and she had the vague sense that his chair could barely hold him. Hermione perched on the very edge of the couch, folding her hands tight into the fabric of her robes. It was only after he’d rummaged around in his desk for a bit and produced some parchment and a Self-Inking Quill that he looked up again, and smiled a bit. “Sorry. I promise I’m not this disorganized on a normal day.”

“It’s all right,” said Hermione. She refolded her hands, and kept her knees tight together, the bones of her ankles touching through her socks. “It’s—I’m—I’m worried about a friend.”

“Oh?”

She eyed him for a time. Ted didn’t _seem_ to be waiting for her to spill her secrets. He was writing things on his parchment, making little dotting motions with his quill as if making a list. She said, “Half-bloods and Muggleborns aren’t safe at Hogwarts anymore. I heard—I heard someone might try to hurt her on the train.”

His head jumped up, sharpish. “Does a teacher know?”

She said, “I wrote to her. And her sister, to tell her to be careful. I’ll tell a teacher when I get back to school.”

“Does that happen often? People getting threatened at Hogwarts?”

Hermione said, “I don’t think I’ve had a _normal_ experience at Hogwarts.”

Ted’s eyes crinkled, just a little. “No. I’m not sure anyone does.”

Hermione bit her tongue rather than speak her mind.

“If you tell a teacher, they can put in extra security on the train,” said Ted. He considered his paper again. “I was Head Boy before I graduated. Wasn’t nearly so dangerous back then, of course, but the teachers are very strict about keeping students safe on the Express. If they knew something was going to happen, they’d probably ask a few Heads of House to patrol alongside students on its way back from London. Make sure nothing happens.”

The tight knot in her chest relaxed. “Oh.” She should have _known_ that. She was a Prefect. But—nothing like that had ever happened in her world. Professors didn’t come on the train. Prefects did. Except in exceptional circumstances, like when Professor Lupin had ridden in during their third year because of the dementors. _And who knows if teachers can do anything to help anyway_ , she thought. She still wasn’t feeling particularly forgiving. “I’ll tell Professor McGonagall. When I go back.”

“Good,” said Ted. Then: “Do you have any questions? Before we get started?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been to a mind healer before, but it was—”

Too direct, she thought. Or, rather, Healer Adegbuyi would have worked for someone different, but asking her to talk about how she felt about losing her parents wasn’t particularly helpful for her at the time. Maybe now she’d be able to handle questions like that a little better, six months on, but definitely not in the fresh, raw days after she’d been transported. She curled her hands tight together again, and stopped talking.

“Yes, you mentioned.” He set the parchment scroll and the Self-Inking Quill on the table. “If it’s all right with you, I want to explain what I usually do in my first meeting with someone. If you’d rather ask questions first, that’s all right as well. Just let me know what you prefer as we move forward, and I can accommodate. All right?”

Hermione nodded once, slowly.

“Mind healing isn’t an exact science,” said Ted, and leaned back in his chair. “My job, as a mind healer, isn’t to fix you. Or, in different terms—illnesses and trauma to the mind have very different healing periods than other illnesses, and it’s my position, as your mind healer, to help you be better able to cope with the symptoms you are experiencing, and may continue to experience.”

Hermione nodded again. The roof of her mouth felt tacky.

“It can be a very frustrating process,” said Ted. His voice softened a bit. “Sometimes there will be setbacks. Even with decades of study, the mind is still rather ineffable. Some things may take longer to discern than others.”

“It sounds like Divination,” said Hermione. Ted laughed.

“Well, I don’t think it’s that foggy, but that’s my opinion.” He rubbed at his jaw. “Every witch or wizard is different, and every experience they have colors their view of the world and how they react to it. Trauma and pain can cause different reactions in different people depending on their upbringing and experiences. The combination of hormonal fluctuations and emotional highs and lows of certain days, times, and memories can cause different kinds of chemical reactions. It’s similar to how a broken limb feels atmospheric changes more strongly on some days than others. It depends on your overall body condition, the mindset you’re in, the level of stress you’re under, any number of things.” Ted laughed again, and then added, “Though I suppose compared to other forms of medicine it does seem rather woolly.” 

She turned that over in her mind for a while.

“This first meeting is more of a way for us to get to know each other and see if you’d prefer to find another healer after all.” Ted stretched his legs out in front of him. “And I won’t be offended if you choose to see somebody else after today. If you want to keep meeting, then we’d develop a schedule to meet as often as you feel comfortable. That can be weekly, twice a week, once a month, entirely up to you and your schedule, though I reserve the right to make a recommendation if I think you need to meet a little more frequently. You don’t have to take my advice, though.”

That seemed reasonable. She nodded.

“I also have some questions I wanted to ask just to get an idea of where you are now, and how you’re feeling at the moment, but we don’t have to start with those.” He tipped his head. “Do _you_ have any questions?”

Hermione bit her lip, and twisted her hands. After a second, she blurted: “What part of this is Muggle medicine and what part of this is magic?”

Ted considered. “The magic comes from the kind of work we’ll be doing to ease your state of mind, particularly if you get anxiety attacks or have moments of panic or depression,” he said. “It’s similar to Occlumency and Legilimency—do you know what those are?”

Hermione nodded again, feeling rather like a _Punch & Judy_ puppet.

“We’ll be using similar techniques to calm your magic, and to disconnect your magic from your symptoms, since the magic and the mind are intimately linked. By building up your own mental walls and securities, you’ll be better able to manage. Others—” He shrugged. “We’ll find other strategies.”

“Did you go to medical school?”

“I did,” said Ted. “I studied here at St. Mungo’s first, for about a year,, and then studied psychology at Cambridge before going to a medical school in London. I’ve been back at St. Mungo’s for about two years, now. I believe I said this in one of my letters, but I specialize in trauma and loss, particularly with hitwizards and Aurors. Part of that came from working with soldiers at Cambridge who had been in Nigeria during the civil war there. I’ve also worked with Muggles _and_ wizards who have—” he stopped for a moment, and adjusted whatever he’d been going to say. “Muggles and wizards from Northern Ireland.”

 _The Troubles._ Hermione curled her hands tighter together. “One of my friends at Hogwarts is from Northern Ireland.”

He relaxed, just slightly. “I see.”

“You work with Muggles?”

“When I can. St. Mungo’s runs me a little ragged, but I can fit appointments into my schedule on weekends, and Apparition helps.” 

She turned that over in her mind. 

“Trauma can come in different forms, as well.” Ted leaned back in his chair. “Its literal definition is the emotional response to an event that traumatizes you. It’s a cyclical concept, but any kind of event can cause it, from being a witness to a violent act to experiencing an abuse of power to being assaulted. And trauma,” he added, “is the brain and body’s natural response to a frightening situation. There’s something called the fight or flight response, where the human brain shuts down most cognitive function and retreats to the most animalistic instinct inside us to either fight off a particular danger, or flee it. Though I think, in my own experience, that there’s a third option, which is freezing to attempt to endure whatever is occurring to that person at that time. That hasn’t been quite so articulated in the literature, but it seems to happen more often than we think.”

Her palms were getting sweaty. Why, she wasn’t quite sure, but she had to scrub them dry on her robes. “Oh.”

He waited, just for a moment. When she didn’t ask anything else, retreated into thought, Ted pulled the parchment and the Self-Inking Quill back to himself, and unrolled it, just for a moment. “Right,” he said. “Well—just so you know a little bit more about me. I was at Hogwarts about ten years ago, in Hufflepuff, if you couldn’t already tell. I’m Muggleborn, raised in Liverpool. I’m running a study on trauma experienced by Aurors here at St. Mungo’s, which is why I get this magnificent office here in the basement. Like I said before, I went to Cambridge after getting my Healing certification. And—that’s about it, really.”

 _And you’re married,_ Hermione thought, looking at him. _And you have a daughter named Nymphadora who grew up to be very kind to me._

“There are—some things I—can’t—talk about.” Hermione twisted her hands. “I—I _can’t_. Not because I don’t want to, but because I’m—not allowed.”

Ted nodded without hesitation. “I get that fairly frequently,” he said. When she blinked at him, his lips curled up. “I work with Aurors and hitwizards, Hermione. There are a lot of classified things that they can’t talk about during their sessions. You can’t surprise me.”

 _I’m fairly sure I could,_ Hermione thought, but she relaxed, ever so slightly. “Oh.”

“If you can’t talk about something—the investigation into your parents, any of it—just say so.” He leaned back in his chair. “And just tell me what you can, if you want. We’re here to help you cope, and if you can’t trust me, then that’s fine. You are leading this conversation, not me. I’m just—here to listen. Especially right now.”

She took a breath, and let it out. _This is Tonks’s dad_ , she told herself. This wasn’t some stranger, even if she’d never _met_ Tonks’s dad. And everything he said made sense. And—

_I can’t lose my magic._

“I’m—Hermione,” said Hermione after a long moment of silence. “My mother was Scottish and my dad was from here in London. I, er. I was Sorted into Gryffindor. Before I came back to the UK I was—in France. I went to school there until this year.”

He nodded.

“I lost my parents in June,” said Hermione. She took a breath. “I—I lost everyone in June, actually. I—after it happened—everyone thinks I’m dead.”

“Why do you say that?”

“They don’t know where I am,” said Hermione, simply. “They don’t—they don’t know where I am, or if I’m all right. And I can’t tell them if I am or not.”

Ted was quiet for a while. “Are you not allowed to write to them?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I can’t talk about that.”

“All right.” After a moment, he said, “Where did you grow up?”

“Peebles,” said Hermione. “And Crawley, before France.”

“No brothers or sisters?”

“No.” She tucked her hands between her knees. “Just me. Mum said her pregnancy was really—hard, and that when she gave birth to me there were—issues. They had to do an emergency cesarean when I was born and she couldn’t have any more children after that.”

Ted made another quiet note on his parchment, scratching out a word or two. “Did you want a brother or sister?”

“Not really.” Hermione shrugged. “I understood why I couldn’t.”

And now, she thought, they’d have no one to replace her. A Muggle child like them, who could stay, who wouldn’t be witched away by wars and violence. They’d never be able to have another child, and to them, she was gone.

“Did you have many friends when you were younger?”

Hermione shrugged again. “Not really.”

“How did your parents feel, do you think?” Ted tapped the end of his quill against his jaw. “About you being a witch?”

“They said they were all right with it.” Hermione squirmed a bit, feeling—itchy. She’d talked about this with Remus, but talking about it with someone she’d never met before—it made her feel exposed. Like she’d been filleted open with a fish knife. But— _come on, Hermione. You’re a Gryffindor. Spit it out._ “I think they were confused by it, mostly. I couldn’t—explain a lot of what I was doing to them. And—and I didn’t want to frighten them with the war. They read wizarding papers, but—but it’s different to hear it aloud. Or—or to hear the things that don’t go into the papers.”

“Right,” said Ted. “It feels more separate, if you read it rather than see it.”

“Exactly.”

He made another note on his parchment.

“What are you writing?”

“Oh,” he said, and then he turned the scroll so she could see it. There was a list of questions, and underneath a few of them a few inscribed notes in a shorthand Hermione could not make out. “Just notes for my records.”

She leaned back against the couch.

“You said you had a friend at Hogwarts who’s from Northern Ireland,” said Ted. “Do you have other friends there?”

“A handful.” Hermione frowned at him. “I don’t—I’m not good at making friends.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m a know-it-all,” said Hermione. “I—I drive people mad. I don’t know when to keep my mouth shut. I like—being the best at things. And I’m not—good—at people. Not the way I am with books, or learning.”

Ted considered that for a while. “There’s nothing wrong with being intelligent. It doesn’t make you bad at people.”

“It doesn’t feel that way when every time you try to make friends you make people hate you,” Hermione snapped, and then looked away at the wall, blinking furiously. “Or they think you think they’re stupid. I didn’t think—people were stupid. I’ve never thought that. I—I just don’t understand how people _work_ sometimes. Especially when I was younger, I didn’t—I didn’t have enough friends to understand what I was doing to make people hate me. I didn’t know how to say the right thing or—or belong. And then—and then I _did_ have friends, really good friends, and now they both—they both think I’m dead.”

Ted nodded. He didn’t speak.

“Only—I don’t now.” She took a breath. It felt as though she’d unstoppered a bottle of wine and upended it all over the floor, spattering red across a carpet. “Sometimes it felt more like I was—was supervising them than actually—I don’t know. They were both boys, and I always thought that was why, but—” Hermione rubbed sweat off her palms. “I don’t know. Some of my—friends now—are boys, and it’s not like that with them, not really.” 

Ted raised his Self-Inking quill to his lips, tapped at the corner of his mouth. It left a black spot against his skin. “Maybe the difference is in you, not them.” 

“Maybe.” She bit her thumbnail. “My—mum used to say that boys didn’t grow up as fast as girls, but—but I never thought that was fair. That always sounded like an excuse to me. For why—why boys were allowed to be cruel.” And that was a tangent. She reined herself back in. “There are—a pair of boys, at Hogwarts, that—remind me a great deal of them in some ways. And it just seems—”

It seemed if she didn’t get along with Sirius or James, then maybe as she was now, she wouldn’t fit with Harry or Ron anymore. She snapped her mouth shut on that, and closed her eyes. 

“Sometimes I wondered if my old friends only—only liked me because I could help them with homework,” Hermione blurted, still with her eyes shut. It was _cruel_ of her to think it, but—she couldn’t help it. “I—I don’t know. It feels horrible to say that now that I can’t see them.”

“Did you really think that, or were you scared they felt that way?”

“Both,” said Hermione. “Probably. Especially at the beginning. Girls in Muggle schools—I don’t know. I wasn’t well liked.”

“How about now? Is it different with your new friends?”

“A little.” She fidgeted again. “They seem to like me. But they don’t—they don’t know me, not really. And there’s so much I can’t tell them about—everything.” 

“Do they know you can’t tell them?”

“I haven’t talked to them about it,” said Hermione. “I’ve told them I can’t write my old friends, but—other than that they haven’t asked.”

“Just because you can’t tell someone something doesn’t mean they don’t know you or that they don’t care about you,” said Ted.

“It still feels like a lie.”

“Do you want to be lying to them?”

She shook her head. “I have to, though.”

“Because of what happened to your parents?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

“Have you talked to anyone about your parents?”

“My friend Remus, a little.” Hermione twisted the hem of her skirt between her fingers. “I can’t—with what happened, there’s things I _can’t_ say. I’m—bound not to say anything. But—but I told him a little bit.”

“So you trust him?” Ted tipped his head. “Your friend Remus.”

“Yes,” said Hermione. “I—I do, yes. I don’t—think he’d lie to me or that he’d spread any of it around. He’s good at keeping secrets.” _He has too many of his own not to be_ , she thought, and bit her tongue again.

“Do you have other friends at Hogwarts?”

She shrugged. “Lily,” she said. “And—and one of our other roommates, sort of, Mary MacDonald. She’s the one from Northern Ireland. And—when I came to England I stayed with a family, they’re kind to me. Marlene and Morgana and Mitzy, the three girls, I like them a lot. Magda is—Magda’s the mother. She was—is—brilliant. Marlene’s the older daughter, she’s graduated, but Mo and Mitzy are in their third and second year at Hogwarts.”

“Like little sisters?”

“I suppose. I didn’t have siblings, I don’t—know what it’s like.” She considered. “One of my friends from before was the second youngest in his family, his parents had seven children. It always seemed very loud to have that big a family.”

“In a good way or a bad way?”

“Both. They loved each other very much, they just—drove each other mad.”

“Sounds like siblings,” said Ted. “It’s a peculiar kind of relationship.”

“I suppose.” She curled her hands into knots. “I—Marlene is a hitwizard. I saw her, for Christmas, and she had a new scar, and it—made me worry. About the littler ones, too. The middle girl, Mo, she—has a friend who’s—a pureblood Slytherin. And she says he’d never hurt her, and I don’t think he would, but I just—after everything, after what’s happening, I—I worry a lot that he’s going to hurt her.” And Lily and Snape, she thought, but—one example was enough for now. “I overheard him in the library before I came here today, he—he was being warned that something might happen to her if they kept being friends.”

“Did that make you think of your parents?” said Ted, in a very calm, very reasonable voice. Like he was commenting on the weather. “Worrying about Marlene and Mo?”

She froze. Her guts churned. Hermione had to swallow, three times, four, before saying, “Not—really.”

“You wouldn’t be abnormal if it did,” said Ted softly. “After what happened to you.”

She twisted her hands again, and said, “It—made me think more about keeping Mo safe. And—I don’t know.”

Now that she’d stopped, and let herself think more about it, it’d reminded her of Harry. About everything that had happened to Harry over the years, all the things they’d become involved in. Someone being relentlessly pursued and persecuted for something they couldn’t even help. It’d made her think of Draco Malfoy in second year, calling her _filthy Mudblood_. It’d made her think of Umbridge, of Karkaroff. Of Voldemort himself. She took a breath, and said it again. “I don’t know.”

Ted made another note on his parchment. “Nothing you say here will go beyond me,” he said, not looking up from his notes. “I took an oath as a Healer, Hermione. _Nothing_ you say goes beyond me. Do you understand?”

Hermione nodded, and shut her eyes.

“Do you feel safe at Hogwarts?” he said.

“No.” Hermione shook her head. “No. I—I don’t feel safe anywhere. But especially not at Hogwarts, not anymore.”

“You think people will attack you?”

“Shouldn’t I?” She stared at him. “I’m a _Mudblood_. And I’m proud of it. But people hate me for it. Hate _us_.”

Ted nodded. “Do you worry about it often? Getting attacked?”

“Sometimes.” She shrugged. “It’s—not worry, exactly. I know it will happen eventually. I just—don’t know when. And—I don’t know. I just—there’s concern.”

Ted tapped his quill, and waited for a time. “That someone else will be caught in the crossfire, maybe?”

“That and—I don’t know.” She wanted to stand, to walk. She wanted to scream. She didn’t want to talk about this, but— _grief is one of the things that can and will eradicate your magic_. She’d lost everything else. She couldn’t lose her magic too. “I’m—I just feel lost.”

He nodded. Ted said nothing.

“I keep thinking if I say or do something wrong I’m going to wreck things,” said Hermione. “I—want things to go back to the way they were before, but that’s—not how time works, I can’t go _back._ But—but I miss how it was. I feel like I’ve abandoned everyone I cared about and now I’m never going to see any of them again, and—and everything is different here. It’s like _Alice Through the Looking Glass_ and I can’t get back to the other side. And now I—worry that if I don’t do something or change something, somebody is going to get hurt.”

“Like Mo?”

“Or Lily,” said Hermione. “She—she has a friend, too, who—he’s a Slytherin, and the other Gryffindors hate him, but—but he’s her best friend. And she told me about him because she trusted me, but I don’t—I don’t know if _I_ trust _him_. I told her I did because I trust her, and he hasn’t done anything to make me doubt him, not yet, but I just—I want everyone to be _safe._ I want things to be the way they’re _supposed_ to be.”

“How are things supposed to be?”

“I don’t know.” She stood, her legs itching. “I don’t know how things are supposed to be here. I don’t—it’s like everything is upside-down and backwards. I don’t—I don’t know what to do. I had a _place_ where I was before. And here I’m just—I feel like I—drift. And even my Patronus changed, too, so _I’m_ different. I don’t—I don’t even know if I’d _fit_ where I was before, anymore. Not with my old friends, or—or even my parents, if I could get to them. Everything is different, including me, and I don’t—I don’t know what to do.”

Ted nodded. He seemed—calm, she thought. In the wake of her outburst, he seemed unfluttered. A port in a storm. “What do you want to come out of these meetings?”

Hermione looked up at the window, onto the London street. She could only make out legs; heels on women, smart shoes on men, trouser legs and stockinged ankles. “I don’t know,” she said. Then: “I just—want to feel normal again.”

“Right,” Ted said, and then put his parchment down. “We can start with breathing.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been brought up by a handful of readers in private messages to me and I want to affirm it: while I don't think Hermione has been diagnosed and likely she won't be over the course of the fic, because it's the 70s and even if it weren't, girls and particularly black girls suffer extreme underdiagnosis: I am writing Hermione as neurodivergent/autistic. I think that shines clearest in this chapter, but I think I've been writing her that way since I started, and it's just become more obvious as time goes on.


	12. The Dueling Ring, Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **EXTREME CONTENT WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER.**
> 
> The Amelia POV is NOT good for people with weak stomachs. PLEASE take heed. IF YOU DO NOT THINK YOU CAN HANDLE WHAT'S LISTED BELOW, FEEL FREE TO SKIP. I will summarize what happened in the chapter notes at the end of the chapter. 
> 
> THIS CHAPTER WILL BE VERY DIFFICULT FOR ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN EMOTIONALLY IMPACTED BY ALT-RIGHT / WHITE SUPREMACIST VIOLENCE IN THE RECENT NEWS. There is NO shame and I will NOT blame you if you want to skip it. I explore my own trauma and emotion by writing. Other people will quite possibly be triggered or made uncomfortable by some of the stuff I've been writing about. If you are one of those people, please feel free to leave a comment and I can write a full summary for you. 
> 
> **WARNINGS FOR THE AMELIA POV INCLUDE:**
> 
> \--disarticulation of bodies  
> \--rotting flesh / rotting dead bodies  
> \--melting flesh  
> \--Hannibal-esque murder  
> \--organ removal  
> \--pinning of a human body with knives  
> \--skinning of a human being, including of the face  
> \--dead children  
> \--evidence of torture of children  
> \--misogynistic and sexual innuendos  
> \--extreme violence  
> \--loss of limb
> 
> Hermione's portion is a bit tamer; not super beyond what's already in the Harry Potter books, but still, take heed of these. 
> 
> **WARNINGS FOR THE HERMIONE PORTION INCLUDE:**  
>  \--depression / symptoms of depression  
> \--mentions of Alice being abused  
> \--mentions of trauma  
> \--chronic illness symptoms / pushing beyond your limits with a chronic illness  
> \--speciesism / bigotry in the wizarding world  
> \--stage fright  
> \--explosions, but like, the fun kind? pyrotechnics i guess  
> \--Hermione Makes A Poor Decision With A Predictable Outcome  
> \--bigoted / blood supremacist insults  
> \--misogynistic / slutshaming insults  
> \--blood and violence  
> \--injury to an animal  
> \--crushed foot  
> \--hospitalization

The call came in at three in the morning. 

Amelia wasn’t asleep yet. She was home—the first night she’d gotten to spend at home in a week, thanks to the dreadful Slughorn party she’d been dragged to by her brother—but she wasn’t sleeping. She’d been lying in bed, watching the lights of London flicker back and forth over her window, when the glass ball beside her bed—the alert—had flared red and started its deep, uncomfortable drone, a drone that would become a wail and then a shriek if she did not pick it up fast enough. She tapped the top of it with her wand in an acknowledgment. “Bones.”

“Diggory House, Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon.” It was Moody, gruff and scraping through the stone. Moody didn’t usually make the calls. Amelia flung the sheets back, and shoved her feet into the boots she’d left beside the bed. “Alarm went off on a set of Ministry wards. Get here fast.”

“Oh my way,” Amelia said, and yanked her hair up into a knot at the back of her head. The tighter the bun, the less likely someone would be able to grab it and use it against her. “Do you think it’s them?”

“I don’t assume anything,” said Moody, and the stone went dark. Amelia swore under her breath—typical Moody, giving the least amount of information possible—and then drew up a memory, a fond, happy memory, of Nnedi taking her out to get her hair styled and lengthened for the first time after she’d come out at work. Her Patronus—a common European viper—slithered out of her wand in a sheet of silver. It lifted its head, and waited. 

“I’ve been called in,” Amelia said, and spun her wand. “It’s—” She looked up at the clock. “Three o’clock. I’ll be home when I can. Stay safe.”

She tucked her wand into her pocket. The snake Patronus coiled its body, curving, and then slipped away in silver fog beneath the door to her bedroom. It would wait, she thought, until Edgar and Nnedi were awake, or home, before passing the message along. She wasn’t even sure if they’d come back from Slughorn’s Christmas party yet, but it was worth leaving the message anyway. And her Patronus was more trustworthy than a piece of parchment that might get lost or tossed in the fire for scraps. 

It’d been Moody’s idea to go to the Ward Office. Moody had people everywhere, informants and those who’d do him favors, though whether it was due to people owing him or people being utterly terrified of him, Amelia couldn’t be sure. Either way, when Moody slammed his way into the Ward Office and demanded that he be personally alerted every time a Ministry-placed ward even flickered in any way, nobody had dared gainsay him. The Ripper murders might have been kept out of the papers so far, but that didn’t mean that certain elements in the Ministry weren’t aware of them. Putting a new charm on the stones they already had in place, for late night calls or alarms, hadn’t been difficult in the slightest. 

If Amelia were entirely honest with herself, she hadn’t had much hope it would work. The wardbreaker was good at their work, and delicate. The Ward Office hadn’t reported anything for any of the previous murders until the bodies had been discovered, and the Ministry wards taken down by Ministry wizards. She knew that for certain, because she’d gone to the Office after every single one crime scene and asked them whether there’d been any sort of out-of-the-ordinary reading. Moody had still gone and leaned on them, though, despite everything, and now, seemingly, it was paying dividends. 

The rest was easy. She’d started sleeping in clean day-clothes months ago—faster, she thought, and easier, to sleep in her work robes when things were like this—so all she needed to do was put her boots on, focus on what few memories she had of Ottery St. Catchpole, and Apparate. They’d been to so many wizarding villages in the last six months that it took her a minute, but finally—after some mental digging—she brought up the fisherman statue in the town square in her mind’s eye. 

Amelia checked her hair in the mirror—“You look awful, dear, you need to charm those bags under your eyes,” the mirror said, and Amelia raised her middle finger to the glass in response—and then turned sharply on her heel, cracking away from the Bones townhouse. 

Ottery St. Catchpole was a mixed-Muggle and wizarding community. It made any work they had to do complicated even at its most basic level; Apparating to a mixed community meant casting a Disillusionment Charm upon arrival, which Amelia did, hating the cracked-egg feeling of the charm slithering down through her hair. It was safer than being spotted by any Muggles, though. It was a small village, small enough that all the shops were shut down and locked up for the night; she could see no one on the main road, save the Christmas lights that had been strung up in windows and along rooftops, draped in an elegant tangle all over the statue of the fisherman in the middle of the village square. They cast an odd, warm, flickering glow over everything, riotously discordant. One of the shops—a clothing boutique labeled _Woody’s,_ a few doors north of her—had its front windows smashed. The mannequins looked as though they’d been loaded with bombs; arms and legs were scattered across the front window and all along the cobblestones. It took her a moment to realize that not all the body parts were from mannequins.

Amelia resettled her fingers on her wand. 

From the look of the limbs, there were about four dead bodies on this street. No heads. Legs and arms were predominant, though she thought there was a single torso hanging halfway out of the shattered shopfront of Woody’s, half-impaled on a bit of broken glass. No way to tell if they were Muggle or wizard; the clothes were too tattered, and it was too dark to make out any kind of insignia on the pieces. Amelia crouched beside one of them, casting another look up and down the street—still empty, though not for long—before tapping the end of her wand to one of the limbs. In a rush of blood, fat, and gasses, it melted, the noxious puddle spreading until it reached the toes of her work boots. 

_Trap._ It rose up her throat, delicate as a feather. _This is a trap._ That, or Ripper and Hatchback had gotten bored and decided to wreck a Muggle storefront as a form of sick foreplay. The difference in MO was too great to not be some deliberate divergence. 

_Maybe that’s why there was a registered break in the Wards._ Maybe they were getting sick of killing children in their beds, and were trying to lure some Aurors to come out and play. 

Amelia settled her wand across her palm, and said, “ _Point me Diggory House._ ” Her wand spun, but in less than two circulations—once, then again—it settled pointing resolutely south-east, down one of the roads breaking away from the village square and towards a cluster of small cottages, all their windows dark as tar. Someone had cut off the electricity to that block. She scuffed the soles of her boots clear of rot, and broke into a jog. 

Amos Diggory was the Undersecretary to the Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. A step up, she thought, as she paused at an intersection and whispered “ _Point me Diggory House_ ” again. The other victims—Svetlana Boot and her children; Arcadia Cummings in Dorset; and Raphael Lewis, his mother, and his two children in Cheshire—had been Ministry employees, but none quite so far up the ladder. And—she paused again, and cast a look at the sky, but there was no Dark Mark, no compass point for her to follow—the Diggorys, so far as she knew, hadn’t said anything about Death Eaters of late. Nothing public, at least. 

And none of them were Muggleborn. 

_Trap._ It was clawing up her throat. _Trap, trap, trap_. 

The Diggory House was two storeys tall, with a wide front garden laced with jasmine and gardenias and all its windows dark as pitch. There was a bit of snow left on the ground, and Amelia touched her wand to her lips in thought. No footprints, though footprints were easy enough to wipe clean, if someone was intent on it. The front door was hanging open, letting in the cold. Amelia cast a small charm at the gate, and found no wards. _No_ wards. Not broken wards, but no wards at all, aside from an Anti-Apparition Jinx that seemed to have been set up by someone. She tapped the gate open with her foot, and ignored the creak of unoiled hinges, the too-loud crumble of snow under her boots. Only way to be sure of a trap was to spring it, and if the door was open, and an Anti-Apparition Jinx up, Moody was here. She could feel it in her gut. 

The house was dark, and smelled of spell smoke. Amelia did not light the tip of her wand. She dispelled her Disillusionment, and stepped over the threshold in silence, not bothering to shut the door behind her, not wanting a creaking hinge or the click of a lock to alert someone inside. Someone had left a broomstick—a wizard’s broom, not a Muggle one—braced against the interior corner of the front hall. There was a steady dripping sound coming from somewhere nearby. Other than that, the place was silent. A stair led to the second floor. Beyond it was another door, half-open. Into the kitchen, she’d guess. To her right was a second door, or rather a doorframe, and through it she could see a couch that was upended and torn. Cotton fluff spilled across the floor and stuck there in dark puddles, trapped like clouds in molasses. Something was smeared across the walls. 

_Clear the house first. Collect evidence later._

There was a body laying spread-eagle across the carpet in the living room. A man. Not Amos Diggory; Amelia might not know Diggory personally, but she knew what he looked like, and this man was not him. Maybe a cousin, or a brother. His ribs had been broken open, his legs in tatters from Cutting Curses. Someone had very delicately removed his interior organs and spread them out around him on the floor before jamming knives—kitchen knives, likely from the house itself—through each separate organ to pin it to the floor, like a sick sort of butterfly mounting board. He was dead, or, at least, she thought he was. There was no movement in his chest, and his lungs were pierced through with blades. His right hand was stretched up towards the wall, almost in supplication, and his fingers were daubed liberally with blood. _HOW’S THIS FOR A HEADLINE_ stretched in an odd arch across the wall above his head. Blood ran down the wall in rivulets from the painted letters. 

“Bones.”

Amelia jumped. She had her wand raised and pointed in Moody’s face before she drew a full breath, holding it with both hands. Moody had his on her, too, his staff held in one hand and his wand in the other. He looked grim. She said, “Fluxweed.”

“Hemlock.”

“Valerian.”

“Mistletoe.”

“Billywig,” she said, and Moody lowered his wand. There were half a dozen more key codes, official ones, but these were ones they’d chosen together; nobody else knew them. A defense against spies in the Ministry. Amelia lowered hers. “How long have you been here?”

“Few minutes.” 

“See anybody?”

“Just you.”

“It’s a trap,” she said.

“Obviously,” Moody grunted, and the hairs on the back of her neck began to relax. If he knew, then they were at least on the same page. He looked over her shoulder at the message on the wall. “Callous bastards.”

“What d’you reckon?”

“Diggory did an interview last week about werewolves.”

 _Werewolves?_ She must have missed that particular article. Then again, she got all her news from crime scene reports and from other people at the Ministry, not the carefully curated trash that got fed to the _Prophet_ every week. Amelia wet her lips, and wiped her free hand dry on her robes. “If they’re expanding out from Muggleborns, then—”

An echoing, piercing scream split the night apart. They did not speak. Amelia bolted for the stairs—her legs were whole; she could run—and Moody for the kitchen, slamming the door fully open with his shoulder. Another scream, and she scrabbled to the landing, flinging a ball of light up to the ceiling with a flick of her wand. The dim light was enough for her to make out glints of silver and shadow; photographs, shattered on the floor. Glass cracked under her shoe. She wet her lips. 

“Aurors!” Amelia said, in a loud voice. “We heard you, where are you?”

“ _Where are you?_ ” a voice echoed, and laughed. It was a woman, her voice low and sweet. “ _Where, oh where, oh where are you_?”

Wood creaked. When Amelia spun around, there was no one there. Down the hall, in one of the empty bedrooms, a candle had been lit. The flickering yellow glow skittered across the floor. Downstairs, there was another creak, and she hoped it was Moody. She was not sure. Amelia shifted her grip on her wand, and cast a silent spell to open the door.

She didn’t see them at first. The candle was lit to showcase the bed, streaked with blood and rot. A child’s bed, shredded as if by an animal. Toys neatly lined the walls. On the bedside table, the candle stood, guttering in the sudden flood of air. It was newly lit, no wax running down its body. She almost covered her nose. The smell of piss and shit and blood was too strong here.

A body was hung from the ceiling fan, small, no older than five or six. The face was hanging off the skull in fleshy ribbons. The child was nude, and blood ran down his body, dripping from his bare toes. Across the wall, behind him, read, painted in more blood: _sorry about the mud stains._ Her gorge rose. Amelia pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, watched the blood drip, and then turned away.

Movement—

“Stop!” It cracked out of her like a spell, but the figure did not stop; one moment they were there and the next they had vanished into another room, and her spell, a wicked _Impedimenta_ , gouged wooden splinters out of the door. When she slammed it open, no one was there. Another bedroom upended, books flung all over, the pillows and blankets shredded to bits, but no blood, and nobody inside.

“Stop hiding,” Amelia said. “We’ll find you.”

“ _Oh,_ ” said a voice, right in her ear, a man this time, and a tongue, wet and warm, flickered against the shell of it. “Stop _hiding_ , pretty girl—”

She whirled, but no one was there. The hall behind her was empty.

“Bones,” snapped Moody, and she scrubbed her ear clean with the hem of her sleeve as she pointed her lit wand around the room. No one was there. Not under the bed, not in the closet. No one. But she had seen—

“ _Bones_ ,” Moody snapped again, and she shut the door and, on instinct, sealed it with _Colloportus_. It snapped into place with a nasty squelching sound, like dripping flesh. She sealed the dead boy’s room, too. No point in giving them more places to hide.

“Coming.”

The stairs creaked under her weight. Moody met her with an upraised wand, his magical eye rolling wildly back and forth, fixing on occasion to stare out the back of his head. Amelia said, “Mandragora,” and he lowered his wand very slowly.

“Boomslang,” he said after a moment, and she relaxed too. Amelia looked down at her feet, and realized she must have stepped in a puddle of blood. She’d left tracks in the carpet. “Anything?”

“Someone’s here.” She touched her ear again, on instinct. “I think they’re using Disillusionment spells.”

“Maybe,” Moody grunted, in the tone that meant he thought she was wrong. “Or something else.”

“There’s a boy dead. In a room upstairs.”

“Figured he would be.” Moody tipped his head. “Another one in the kitchen. Woman in her sixties.”

“I thought Diggory was in his thirties?”

“Family members,” said Moody. “Obviously. We—”

There was a creak. When Amelia turned, wand at the ready, a figure haunted the top of the stairs. The light of _Lumos_ gleamed off their silver mask.

Next to her, Moody did not hesitate. He lashed out, and red light shot from the end of his wand in a whip, arcing up the stairs and lashing the wood to splinters. The figure pirouetted, dancing away—Amelia fired a spell of her own, _Impedimenta, Incarcerous_ , and they flashed back like fireworks, repelled off the cloak as if it were steel.

A step, a creak, and there was a noise to her left that she didn’t recognize, a crunch, bone on bone—Amelia’s Shield spell bloomed, and a body crashed against it, blood running from its hairline, a woman—she screamed, a deep and broken sound, and was flung backwards like a doll and tossed into Amelia’s shield again, as if on strings, suspended in the air by a spell and slammed into Amelia’s shield like a living club—

Someone was laughing—

“Down!” Moody barked, and Amelia dropped on instinct as another curse, bright purple, cut through the air above her head. It sliced through the wall, and through a picture frame, severing the image to pieces; glass shattered as it hit the floor. A second man bolted out the door. Movement above—the hooded figure on the stairs cast again, laughing, and knocked one of Moody’s spells away from himself as if it were nothing, like a child’s—Amelia’s Shield splintered as the floating woman struck it again, and over the floating woman’s twisted broken shoulder she saw a third figure, smaller and in a delicate mask, raising her wand—

A silver whip of light caught around her wrist and sliced—blood—Amelia screamed—

“ _Finite_ ,” Moody snarled, and the whip vanished, but the blood and gashes remained; she swapped her wand to her left hand, her back to Moody’s, casting—

“Please,” the floating woman sobbed; one of her eyes was bloody and swollen shut. “ _Please_ —”

“ _Please_ ,” said the woman in the mask, mocking—“ _Diffindo_ —”

The floating woman screamed as her arm came away, landing with a wet and awful thud against the broken floor—

“Get her,” Moody snarled, and Amelia did not hesitate; she seized the woman ‘round the waist—

There was a bang of a door opening, a howl like a wolf’s—

“ _Greyback_ ,” Moody snapped, “get her out of here—”

“I won’t leave you—”

“ _Amelia, go_!”

He did not wait for an answer. He aimed his wand at the ceiling, and she felt the Anti-Apparition jinx snap, like a rubber band against her skin. Amelia did not disobey. She turned—

The last thing she saw was the message on the living room wall, hovering over the dead.

.

.

.

 _Dear Harry and Ron_ , 

_~~Winter hols have~~ _

_~~The term is~~ _

_~~I’m worried about~~ _

_~~I don’t know what to~~ _

_I have been putting off writing this letter because the thought of saying “Happy Christmas” as if nothing is wrong is revolting to me. You are there and I am here, and nothing I write to you will reach you, but I still search for the right thing to say because of my perverse stubbornness. I miss you both very much. I hope you are safe._

_I am waiting in the entrance hall for Mo and Mitzy to come back from the Hogsmeade station. I don’t know if my note arrived in time; when I went to check the Owlery, the screech owl I picked was still gone, though that could just mean that he’s out hunting after returning post-delivery. Or that he’s staying with Marlene and Magda for some reason. Maybe the flight to Cornwall was difficult for him, like it’s difficult for Errol sometimes. He didn’t seem a very old owl, but perhaps he tires easily._

_I told Professor McGonagall about what Snape told Regulus, like Ted suggested. She said it would be fine, but I don’t know if it really will be. Which is why I’m waiting on the stairs in the Entrance Hall, because they wouldn’t let me go down to Hogsmeade to meet them at the platform. Filch keeps giving me nasty looks. I think Professor McGonagall is on the train, though, and Professor Slughorn. They weren’t at dinner last night, anyway. Considering Avery and Mulciber stayed at Hogwarts over winter hols, I didn’t know who exactly to warn Mo and Mitzy about. I can only hope they’ll stay safe and not take stupid risks._

_I don’t know what to make of my meeting with Ted Tonks. He gave me lots of breathing exercises to do, like the ones Snape had you doing for Occlumency, Harry_ — _calming the mind and everything. Magic and the mind are intimately linked, we knew that before, but I don’t think I realized just how deeply until I came here and it became necessary to—well, understand it better. I’ve only been doing the exercises for a few days so it’s not likely I’ll see any changes yet, but they feel silly. I’m sorry for ever harassing you about them, Harry. They’re much more difficult than I imagined, and it’s absurd to sit there breathing when there are so many other things I can and should be doing with my time, even if I do it before bed. I’ve never been good at quieting my mind. If I try to focus on my breathing, all my worries go haywire, and I sit on my bed for an hour trying to draw them back into line again. _

_We talked a great deal about my parents, and the war, and about trauma. He didn’t tell me whether he thought I could get better. It’s left me feeling very tired and directionless, which I’m not very accomplished at. I don’t know how else to put it. He said sometimes meeting with mind healers will do that, but I don’t see how it helps. I must continue, though. It’s not likely I’ll find another mind healer who will ask me so few questions about things I can’t discuss, and I don’t want to risk losing control of my magic._

_One of the things he recommended at the end of the meeting was that I come up with a list of different goals that I want to try to accomplish. It seemed silly to write it all down, because I clearly have goals and I’ve clearly been working on those goals, but it’s something he wants me to try. To allow my brain a break from the constant worry by writing things down. So, my goals for the new term: _

  * _Help Alice_ _. I don’t know how, but I have to. I have to.   
  
_
  * _Finally read The City. I am still waiting for Madam Pince to inform me whether it has arrived, but when it does, I want to read all of it. I am convinced, after reading that wretched book by Bathilda Bagshot (I can hear you both gasping from here) that there is a great deal more to goblin-wizard relations than is published in textbooks. (Blasphemy, you cry, but yes, I am coming hard up against a wall of realization that teachers may not, in fact, know everything. Having the Daily Prophet turn into a smear campaign against you all last year, Harry, should have been more than enough to disabuse me of my faith in the publishing process, but alas I still had the temerity to expect a published history book to not be full of propagandistic Blast-Ended Skrewt dung. That period of naïve faith is over. I will need verification before I trust anything or anyone so quickly ever again.)  
  
_
  * _Solve the Orbis Sanguis. I haven’t attempted to summon the Black family magic in a long time—I haven’t had the courage, to be honest—but I’m tempted. I want to see if I can communicate with it.  
  
_
  * _Ensure that the new Dueling Club is a success. I’m warming more and more to the idea as I think about it. It helps that Lily and Remus will be helping me.  
  
_
  * _Try to ensure the basilisk doesn’t emerge. I don’t think it will anytime soon—it’s not like Voldemort can find his way into Hogwarts, and so far as we know there were no Parseltongues at Hogwarts until you, Harry, that could have woken the serpent—but I’ll need to be careful just in case. After what happened to Lucinda, the last thing we need is more petrifications. I don’t think the current Herbology professor could handle it.  
  
_
  * _Go down to the kitchens and visit the elves. (Yes, SPEW. I’m finding I enjoy knowing that you both can’t argue with me about it from so far away.) I haven’t been able to find anything different about house elves in the library, but I want to be sure that they’re at least comfortable. I cannot be sure something else hasn’t changed between worlds.  
  
_
  * _Speak to Snape. I want to find out why he warned Regulus about the attack on Mo. I can’t think of a reason why, but I don’t believe it was just to get a favor.  
  
_
  * _Get through the remainder of the spring and summer terms. Having a second set of OWLs on top of sixth year courses isn’t exactly how I pictured this year, but then again, I didn’t picture this particular year at all. _



_I can hear the students coming up the front steps. I have to go. I miss you both._

_Much love, I miss you, xoxoxoxo,_

_Hermione_

The doors to the Entrance Hall creaked open as Hermione shut her endless notebook and tucked it back into the pocket of her robes. People trundled in in twos and threes, checking in with Filch and having their luggage searched to ensure they hadn’t brought Dark artifacts back from home. Most of the returning students were third years and under, because of the Yule Ball restriction, but one or two upperclassmen slogged through the masses like cornstalks among dandelions. Most of them, she saw, were Slytherins. After all, she thought, nastily, most Slytherins—most pureblood Slytherins, anyway—had nothing to fear from going back home for the holidays.

There weren’t many faces she recognized. Or rather, there were, she just didn’t speak with them very often; smaller, younger students, or people she knew from class but not well. Most of the students her age had stayed behind for the Ball, or just to stay someplace safe (or safer than most) for the winter, but she recognized one or two. Gabriel Morgan, the other Beater on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, saw her watching the crowd and blanched, collecting his things from Filch and darting off without a word. Probably, she thought, because the last time he’d tried to blow her skirt up she’d thrown a Stinging Hex at his crotch. Dane Fawcett was at the door, too; he sneered at her but inclined his head all the same. He’d never quite forgiven her for breaking his nose in that first DADA class. Hermione stood on her toes, craning her neck over the crowd, and almost fainted with relief when she caught sight of Mo’s frizzy red hair and Mitzy’s olive skin. Mitzy was struggling to keep hold of Natasha again. Mo went tiptoe and waved when she saw Hermione, and then said, “Oh, for goodness sake, there’s nothing in there, Filch!”

Filch sniffed. “All trunks are to be inspected,” he said, in a voice that promised retaliation. “Them’s the rules.”

Hermione, thinking of Filch’s vicious pleasure in joining Umbridge, slid through the crowd of students to stand between Mo and Mitzy. She couldn’t help it. She put an arm around Mitzy, and tugged her close into a hug. The rings around Mitzy’s eyes were much, much deeper than usual; she was swaying on her feet like she was about to pass out. “Mitzy, you look awful—”

“’m tired,” said Mitzy sleepily. “It’s bright out.”

Mo gave Hermione a look that was surprisingly anxious. “She’s been like this since this morning,” said Mo, and scowled as Filch popped open Mitzy’s trunk to search through it. “Seeing her dad always ends like this, they’re both as bad as each other—”

“Baba’s worse,” said Mitzy sleepily. She leaned closer against Hermione, almost making Hermione topple sideways. Natasha the cat made a loud mowing noise before finally wriggling free of her wicker basket, and bolting off up the stairs. “He never sleeps.”

“Magda said your dad came to visit, Mitzy, that’s good, isn’t it?” Hermione craned her neck, trying to see the rest of the crowd. “No trouble on the train?”

“No.” Mitzy leaned her head to Hermione’s shoulder, and shut her eyes. “Some Slytherins came by our compartment but Frank chased them off.”

 _Thank God for Frank Longbottom._ Hermione let out a long breath. “Good.”

“Clear,” said Filch, clearly irritated about it. He slammed Mitzy’s trunk shut. “You’re holdin’ up the line.”

“Thank you, Filch,” said Hermione in an icy voice, and Levitated Mitzy’s trunk out of the way. “Mo?”

“I’m fine,” said Mo. She gave Mitzy another look. “She needs the Hospital Wing.”

“What?” Hermione looked down at Mitzy again. “She’s always tired, isn’t she?”

“It’s her dad, it’s—” Mo hissed between her teeth, Levitating her own trunk out of the way. “I can’t explain here, but—can you take her? I’ll get these trunks away and then I’ll meet you there—”

“Mo—”

“I’m fine,” said Mitzy, sleepily. She blinked up at them both. “Honestly, I’m just—”

“Hermione,” said Mo, and her anxiety was palpable. She combed her red hair out of her eyes. “Don’t listen to her. Take her to the hospital wing. Please.”

Hermione nodded.

Mitzy’s feet kept tangling underneath her as they walked, so eventually, Hermione—Hermione, whose heart was up in her throat at this point with worry; _why would Mitzy be like this even if the Slytherins were kept away from them?_ —put her arm around Mitzy’s ribs and half-carried her into the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey was sorting through her herbs at the back of the room when Hermione nudged the door open with her foot, but the instant she saw Hermione with Mitzy she bustled over, rolling up her sleeves. “Right,” she said, and gave Hermione a funny look. “Help me get her on the bed—”

“I don’t know what’s wrong, she just said she was tired—”

“No wonder,” said Madam Pomfrey under her breath. “She overextends herself, especially around the holidays—”

“I’m _fine,_ ” said Mitzy, but she slurred her words. “Honestly—”

“You are _not_ , Mitzy—”

“Lift,” said Madam Pomfrey. “Ready—one—two—”

Together, they lifted Mitzy onto the bed. Mitzy weighed about as much as a kitten; Hermione folded the blanket up over her, and sat on the edge of the bed, taking Mitzy’s small, cold hand in her own. Madam Pomfrey had gone bustling off to her office again, muttering under her breath about _children_ and _pushing too hard_ and _foolishness_.

“I’m fine,” said Mitzy again. She blinked, slowly. Her eyes were red-rimmed with fatigue. “Honestly, Hermione, I’m—

“You’re clearly not,” said Hermione, sharp. “You’re exhausted—did you tell Magda you were feeling this way before you got on the train? Because—”

“No, I—” Mitzy wet her lips. Her gums were very pale. “Mum worries. ‘m _fine_.”

“You’re clearly _not_ ,” said Hermione, but Mitzy closed her eyes, and did not answer. She’d fallen asleep. Hermione swallowed, and put her fingers to Mitzy’s pulse—slow, but steady—before gripping her hand tighter. She was such a tiny thing, Hermione thought. Even by the standards of a second year.

Madam Pomfrey bustled back. She had a goblet in her hands. Whatever potion was inside was steaming; it smelled strongly of iron and copper. Like blood, Hermione thought. Madam Pomfrey frowned, and put the goblet down beside Mitzy’s bed.

“She’s asleep?”

“She was in the middle of saying something and just passed out.”

“Right,” said Madam Pomfrey. She looked at Hermione, and sighed. “Professor Dumbledore said you stay with the McKinnons during holidays; have you seen her this bad before?”

“She always looks tired, but—” Hermione watched as Madam Pomfrey rolled up her sleeves, and slid her arm around Mitzy’s back, tipping her into a seated position to pour the potion down her throat. It smoked as it went. “I’ve never seen her like this. Mo said that her dad was visiting over the holidays and—”

“Of course,” said Madam Pomfrey. She sighed again, and put the empty goblet back on the side table, slowly leaning Mitzy back down to the blankets. “No wonder.”

“I don’t understand,” said Hermione. Madam Pomfrey cut her another look, and straightened.

“It’s her story to tell,” said Madam Pomfrey. “Not mine. But if you want to stay with her until she wakes, dear, feel free. It shouldn’t be long. The potion’s fast-acting.”

“Is she all right?” Hermione’s throat began to close; her chest ached. “Is she—”

“She’s as all right as she can be,” said Madam Pomfrey, gently. “In fact, she’s been doing quite well. She’ll need a few more doses of the potion in the next few hours, but other than that, she’ll be fine, dear. Just let her rest.”

Hermione bit her lip, and nodded. Madam Pomfrey smiled, just a little, before going back to her herbs at the far end of the room. Cataloguing, Hermione thought. To make sure she had everything for all the returning students. And if she could figure that out, she likely spent far too much time in the hospital wing. Hermione looked back at Mitzy, at her pale face, and settled in to wait.

Mo turned up about fifteen minutes later, her freckled face flushed with exertion. She wilted a little when she saw Mitzy in the bed, and sat down on the cot on Mitzy’s other side, swearing under her breath. She put her hand to Mitzy’s forehead, and then to her pulse, before sniffing the goblet Madam Pomfrey had left on the bedside table. “Sorry,” she said after a moment. “I would have taken her myself, but I—”

“It’s all right,” Hermione said. “I didn’t mind.”

Mo didn’t look at her. She squeezed Mitzy’s fingers, and said nothing.

“Mo,” said Hermione, softly. “What happened?”

Mo sighed, loud and sharp. She pulled her legs up onto the bed, folding them like a yogi, and began to rake her fingers through her frizzy hair, pulling it up and high and tight at the back of her head. She was winding a tie around the base of her makeshift ponytail as she said, “Mitzy hasn’t told you, then?”

“Told me what?”

Mo tied off her hair. Then, with a grouchy noise, she yanked the tie free again, and went to redo it. “I thought she would have told you,” said Mo. “She said she was going to last term, I reckoned she would have already said—”

“Told me _what?_ ” Hermione said.

“My dad’s a vampire.”

It was Mitzy. She’d opened her eyes, just a little. Her gums were less pale, Hermione noticed. She still looked exhausted; she could barely seem to focus her gaze on either of them. Mo seized Mitzy’s hand again, and squeezed, hard.

“I _told_ you, you should have told Mum before we left, you looked so peaky—”

“Thought I’d be fine,” said Mitzy, softly. “Didn’t think it’d hit that fast.” She wet her lips. “Don’t tell Mum I wound up in hospital.”

“Mitzy—”

“Mo, please.” Mitzy tried to smile. “Honestly, I’ll be all right. I just overdid it, that’s all.” She turned her head, just a little, to look at Hermione. Hermione shifted on the bedspread, feeling like an intruder. “It’s all right. My dad—”

“You should be resting,” Hermione said. “You don’t have to tell me right now—”

“I want to.” Mitzy took a breath, and shut her eyes again. She kept them closed. “My dad’s a vampire. He—he’s from Iran, like Mum. Or like Mum’s family, her birth family, before she was adopted by Gran and Grandda. She was—she took a job out in Tehran for six months when she was getting her potions mastery. That’s where they met. Iranian wizards don’t—treat vampires like British ones do. They’re not classified as part-creature like they are here.” 

Hermione bit the inside of her cheek. “I didn’t know.” It felt like chipping the words out of stone. She didn’t _like_ not knowing things. Not in the slightest. “So—”

“We’re called dhampirs,” said Mitzy, still very soft. “In Europe, at least. We’re not—rare, in other parts of the world. But—but there aren’t many of us in England. There aren’t many vampires here that will—interact with the wizarding world. And it’s not like it’s easy for vampires to get visas to Britain with—with all the restrictions in international travel for creatures. So there aren’t many half-vampires like me here.”

 _That,_ Hermione had known. Vampires tended to stay away from wizarding communities, more due to wizards being frightened of them than anything. She wet her lips. “Was he—born, or—”

“He was bitten,” said Mitzy. “When he was Mum’s age now. A long time ago.”

She scrambled for her memories about vampires. They were fairly close to the Muggle interpretation, she remembered that. So long-lived as to be nearly classified as immortal, for what was half-dead was extremely difficult to kill. Not afraid of crosses—that was a Christian superstition—but light and fire and running water could stymie them, and they needed to drink blood to survive, though it did not have to be human. Dhampirs were different. She hadn’t looked into them overmuch, since Professor Lupin had explained in third year that most dhampirs didn’t live long enough to be dangerous, and even if they did, they rarely had the same abilities as their vampiric parent.

Hermione’s throat squeezed tight.

“I’m all right, Hermione,” said Mitzy softly, as if she’d read Hermione’s mind. She reached out with her free hand, and knitted her fingers into Hermione’s, squeezing gently. “It’s not like it used to be ten years ago, Mum says. Dhampirs can live a lot longer now. The only reason they died so easily before was because it’s—it’s like having a blood disorder. We need to take lots of blood rejuvenating potions, all the time. Mum created a potion while she was pregnant with me and she’s been refining it ever since. It’s being licensed by the Ministry right now for other dhampirs, but—she taught Madam Pomfrey how to make it when I started coming to Hogwarts. I just—missed a few doses while Baba was in town. I didn’t mean to, I just—it was the holidays, and I forgot. I’m all right.”

Hermione blinked. She was certain she’d remember hearing about a potion to keep dhampirs healthy in one of her classes. Maybe in her original world Magda hadn’t succeeded in making the potion. The thought of that not happening, the thought of Mitzy not surviving her young childhood, or not surviving birth at all, made Hermione’s blood congeal in her veins. She swallowed hard, and gripped Mitzy’s hand tighter.

“I told you that you should have told Mum this morning,” said Mo, softly.

“And have her snap at me for forgetting?” Mitzy shook her head. She still hadn’t opened her eyes. “I’m all right. Or I will be. I just need another dose. Or two,” she added, a bit sheepishly. “I missed more than I should have. I was just—happy to see Baba. I haven’t since I was eight, it’s so hard for him to get the visa.”

“Mitzy,” said Hermione. “You—”

“I’m all right,” said Mitzy again. “I promise, Hermione. Please don’t worry.” She squinted through her lashes. “Mum worries enough as it is.”

Hermione bit her lip. “Does anyone else know?”

“My Head of House,” said Mitzy. “You and Mo and Marlene and Mum. And Madam Pomfrey. Not really anyone else. People are frightened of part-creatures. I don’t want anyone to look at me different just because of who my baba is.” She squinted at Hermione again, and presses her lips together until they bleached. “I—you’re not scared of me, are you?”

“No,” said Hermione. “No, Mitzy, of course not—why would I—”

She trailed off.

“Good,” said Mitzy. She shut her eyes again, leaned back against the pillow. “I knew you wouldn’t be. I should have told you before. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, I—” Hermione wet her lips, thinking of Remus, and then of Hagrid, how the _Daily Prophet_ and parents and everyone else reacted when they learned that a werewolf and a half-giant were at Hogwarts. “I understand.”

Mo, on the other side of the cot, reached out and rubbed Hermione’s back. Hermione almost jumped.

“I’m okay,” said Mitzy again. She sighed. “I think I need to sleep. You—you don’t have to fuss over me. You can go unpack, Mo.”

“Like hell,” said Mo. She grinned at Hermione. “We’re going to watch you until you wake up. Aren’t we, Hermione?”

“That’s not creepy at all,” said Mitzy. She sounded sleepy again. “You said you wanted to go say hi to Reg when we got back to Hogwarts.”

“That was before you acted like an idiot,” said Mo.

“Thanks,” said Mitzy, dryly. She sighed. “I’m going to sleep. You can leave if you want.”

“I’m staying,” said Hermione. She looked at Mo. “We’ll both stay.”

Mitzy’s lips curled up into a tiny smile.

.

.

.

It took the whole of the weekend for Mitzy to recover, but by the time classes started again on the Monday, she was back at the Ravenclaw table with only little rings under her eyes to show for her days spent in the Hospital Wing. Hermione, on the other hand, buried herself in books about vampires and dhampirs, determined to rectify her lack of knowledge as quickly as possible.

What Mitzy had told her had been accurate. Most dhampirs died before turning two or three years old—most texts on them seemed to indicate that no wizard had really studied _why_ , simply theorizing that wizard and vampire could not effectively procreate—but after some digging Hermione found a paper released by Magdalene McKinnon approximately two years before in conjunction with—her eyes popped—Edgar Bones, Healer, discussing the various physiological traits of dhampirs, the effectiveness of blood rejuvenation potions in keeping them alive, and the projected lifespan of dhampirs who were treated via this potion. At least eighty years, Magda had theorized, and Hermione relaxed in spite of herself. It was only a little over half the amount of time most wizards could expect—the average witch or wizard lived until at least a hundred and thirty—but unless Mitzy stopped taking her potions altogether there was no risk of her being harmed by her condition anytime soon. The paper descended into Healing terminology and references to spells that Hermione had never heard of, which meant another trip to the library would be in order. Hermione spent most of Sunday in the Healing section, and resolved to ask Madam Pomfrey to clarify a few things after her next Healing class; even if she’d had more than enough of the hospital wing of late, she may as well try to make the most of it.

One of the things that Hermione had dedicated herself to in the last few days of winter hols had been making flyers for the Dueling Club. Lily and Alice had both helped; Alice, who’d turned out to have more of a talent for art than Hermione had expected, and who had needed a distraction after what had happened at Slughorn’s Christmas lunch, had even designed a logo for the club, two crossed wands flaring silver and gold sparks. They’d asked Frank Longbottom and Emmeline Vance to distribute them to all the Prefects, so they could be hung in all the Common Rooms. Seeing them around school made Hermione feel oddly sick; Dumbledore’s Army hadn’t been so openly advertised. Then again, she told herself, an official dueling club to be supervised by Professor Flitwick and Professor Meadowes was much different than an illicit organization constructed to ensure that students could pass their OWLs and protect themselves and people around them in the wake of a coming war. Students in this decade were being taught, she thought. It wasn’t like Umbridge. It was just that many of them needed much more practice.

They’d scheduled their first Dueling Club session for the first Wednesday of term; just long enough that most people would have seen and taken note of the flyers in their common rooms, but not so long as to be sure that people would forget about the day and time that had been scheduled. Hermione woke that morning with a distinctly sickly feeling in her stomach; she visited the thestrals before breakfast, and then came back in from the snow and ice to slide onto the bench between Lily and Mary, shivering and covered in snow.

“Christ,” said Mary, and pulled away from her. “You’re like a freezer, where on earth have you been—”

“Out in the Forest,” said Hermione, and leaned forward to pour a mug of coffee. Her fingers were numb. “I go see the thestrals in the mornings.”

“Is _that_ where you go?” said Lily, curiously. She pulled the tray of fried tomatoes closer, so Hermione could spear one. “I just reckoned you went on walks like Remus does.”

Hermione blinked. She’d known Remus had breakfast early and then vanished, but she’d always thought it was to revise before classes, not go on a walk. It made sense, she supposed. “I bring the herd bacon sometimes,” she said, and changed the subject. “I’m fine, I don’t want to eat anything—”

“Don’t be silly,” said Lily bracingly. “You’ve got to eat before class. I know you usually skip breakfast, but we’re dueling today. Buck up.”

Hermione wrinkled her nose at Lily, but spooned some tomatoes onto her plate anyway.

“So that’s going ahead then?” said Sirius, as he slid onto the bench opposite and seized the nearest plate of sausage, dumping three of them on his plate. Sirius, she’d noticed, was distinctly carnivorous. An aspect of being a Grim animagus, she supposed. Dogs were primarily carnivores, after all. “I reckoned it would, Moony said you lot were organizing it, but—”

“Yes, it’s going ahead,” said Lily. She frowned at Sirius’s plate. “Don’t you think you’ll be sick, eating all of that?”

“Nonsense, Lily, my love.” Sirius dropped a wink. “I’m a _hound_ for sausage.”

Peter, settling next to him, snorted so loud a few people turned around to look. Hermione kept her eyes studiously on her plate, and wondered how on earth the Marauders got away with _anything_.

“What-ho, all,” said James, and dropped down hard on Sirius’s other side, looking incredibly windswept. Or, Hermione thought, like he’d been ruffling his hair a great deal to appear so. It was too windy outside to fly safely, she knew _that_ for sure. He pulled a face at Sirius’s plate before reaching for fried potatoes, beans, and tomatoes. James was as vegetarian as Sirius was carnivorous, though it had taken her much longer to notice it. “You look lovely this morning, ladies. You especially, Evans.”

“Eat a dungball, Potter,” said Lily without missing a beat, and Mary cackled as James’s expression abruptly dropped, from assured of himself to stung.

“Tough luck, Jimbo, she still hates you.”

“Isn’t it exhausting, being so sanctimonious all the time, MacDonald?”

“Oo, a whole guinea word, Potter, that’s nice.”

“Fuck off, Mary,” said James. His eyebrows drew together in a stubborn line. “I don’t know what I did to you, Evans—”

“Oh, leave off, for fuck’s sake, James, this got old months ago.” Mary stood sharply, seizing her last piece of toast. “Lily? Are you coming?”

“I need to speak with Frank before class starts, we’re changing rotations for patrols this week, so—” Lily squeezed Hermione’s shoulder. “All right, ‘Mione?”

Hermione blinked at the nickname—she’d never liked nicknames, but somehow this one didn’t itch as much against her skin as it could—and nodded. “I have a book.”

“See you later then,” said Lily, and flounced off, her long red hair bouncing with the motion as she hooked her arm through Mary’s and dragged her out of the Great Hall. Sirius pulled another sausage off the tray onto his plate as soon as they were out of sight, bringing his grand total up to five.

“Tough luck, James,” he said bracingly to James, and pierced one of his sausages whole to take a massive bite off the end of it. He leaned forward. “What’s the book, Granger?”

“ _How To Take The Nose Off Snoops,_ ” said Hermione without looking up from her plate. She had her book open in her lap, and had to balance her fork carefully to ensure that she didn’t drop tomato seeds on the page. “If you’re interested in a demonstration, Sirius.”

Peter snorted again. When Hermione looked up, he caught her eye and grinned at her. Sirius rolled his eyes.

“Looking forward to the dueling club, though,” said James, and Hermione blinked. It was the first time James Potter had spoken to her in weeks, that she could remember. He ladled beans onto his plate. “It’s a good idea. Reckon we can duel again? I know I put on a pretty poor show last time, but I’ve been practicing.”

Hermione blinked at him again. It’d been a while since she’d looked at him and hadn’t _just_ seen Harry. Probably the first time she’d seen him, she thought. Picking out the differences. He gave her a careful look through his messy, windswept hair, and she tipped her head, considering him. After a beat, she said, “Of course, James.”

“There you go, Prongs, see? Told you she’d say yes.” Sirius took another massive bite of sausage. Hermione frowned at the three of them, at the gap that they’d left between Sirius and Peter.

“Of course I would, that’s the point of a dueling club. Where’s Remus? I needed to speak with him about tonight and he’s usually here to gather you three up by now.”

For some reason, Sirius and James grinned as one. It was so distinctly Fred and George that she almost recoiled. Before either of them could say anything, Peter jumped into the breach. “He said he had to talk to Frank this morning too. He’s probably there.”

That made sense. Hermione looked down at her book again—she’d been reviewing the last few spells Professors Flitwick and Meadowes wanted to focus on today—and then sighed. “Right,” she said, and shut her book. “I can’t eat this. Do any of you want—”

“Me,” said Sirius, and stole her plate before she could finish her sentence. “Eight o’clock in the Great Hall, right?”

“That’s right.”

“See you then, Granger,” said James, and said something into Sirius’s ear that had Sirius barking with laughter. Hermione shoved her book back into her bag, and made her way for the grand staircase.

Class dragged on. At the same time, though, it seemed to move much too fast; she’d be staring at the clock one moment, unable to focus, and then the next moment she’d blink and forty minutes had gone by. Dinner was a mess. She couldn’t eat; she met with Alice instead, the first time Alice had willingly looked her in the eye since the Slug Club party, and went over the final preparations for the first session of the dueling club. Then, as time ticked closer and closer to eight o’clock, she went back up to Gryffindor Tower to fix her hair, and set off for the Great Hall to set up.

The Great Hall had been entirely transformed. Likely by the house elves, she thought, and her stomach turned over again. All the big tables and massive benches had been shifted out—hidden somewhere, though where, she had no idea—and in the place of the four House tables a long and brightly colored stage had been set up, parallel to the High Table up on the dais. Lily was sitting on the edge of the stage, swinging her legs back and forth. Alice stood beside her on the stage, looking very pale and sweaty. Remus was nowhere to be seen.

“Hullo,” said Lily, and jumped down to the floor. “Was this your idea?”

“Professor Meadowes’, I think.” Hermione sloughed her bag off her shoulder, and put it in the pile of Lily and Alice’s bags at the far end of the room before joining them. “Is Professor Flitwick—”

“He’s coming,” said Lily. “He just had to grab a few final things. I think he wanted to come in his traditional dueling uniform, to make the first years laugh.”

Hermione thought of Gilderoy Lockhart’s version of a dueling uniform, and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing herself.

“So,” Alice said, her voice high-pitched. “Um, you don’t need me to—do anything, tonight, do you? I mean, I can, of course, I’d love to help—”

“I was thinking you could stay with the first years,” said Hermione, and the tension in Alice’s shoulders faded almost immediately. “I don’t want them fully integrated with the other students yet, and they’ll like you. Lily, do you want to take the fifth and seventh years?”

Lily’s eyes sparked. “So if Potter mouths off I can hex him?”

Hermione bit her lip. “Um—”

“Brilliant,” said Lily. “Then that leaves the second and fourth years and the sixth and third years to you and Remus, which probably works cause you’re the best duelists—”

Blood shot into her face. Hermione took off her cloak, and rolled up her sleeves. “Lily, honestly—”

“She’s not wrong,” said Remus, and Hermione turned. He’d loped up behind them without her hearing him. “Well, about you, anyway. People are starting to gather outside.”

“Oh, lord,” said Hermione. She’d made her way through a few dozen when she’d come in, but that’d been typical for the entrance hall on a weeknight. “How many?”

“A lot,” he said. He eyed Alice. “You all right, Alice? You look a bit peaky.”

“Fine,” said Alice, in a squeaking voice.

“It’s almost eight o’clock,” said Lily. “Do we—I mean—should we open the doors, or wait for—”

“You lot are here early.” Professor Meadowes was in tie-dye today, her hair braided close against the top of her head in cornrows and her overalls spattered with paint along the hems. She smiled at Alice—Alice tentatively smiled back—and boosted herself to sit on the edge of the stage, like Lily had a moment ago. “Performance nerves?”

Alice turned pink, and let out a high-pitched laugh that echoed around the entire Great Hall.

“It’ll be fine.” Professor Meadowes began to swing her legs. “Professor Flitwick will be here in a minute or two. And you’re already guaranteed a decent audience. Granger, you’ll start us off, I think—this was something you started, after all—and then we can split everyone into partner groups for the first session. That was the plan, wasn’t it?”

“I think so.” Hermione tucked her wand behind her ear, and rubbed her hands free of sweat on the fabric of her uniform skirt. “Lily?”

“Sounds good to me.” Lily arched a coppery brow. “Remus?”

“I’m fine,” said Remus. “Should I open the doors, Professor?”

“Mm.” Professor Meadowes considered. “Yeah, best let them in. That way people don’t think it’s canceled.”

Hermione felt a bit dizzy. This was worse, she thought, than going down to the Hog’s Head. Harry had been the center of attention there. _Come on, girl, shape up_ , _you’ve faced worse._ And she had. It just didn’t ease her nerves.

Slowly, students filtered in. Fifteen, then twenty; thirty; more. The whole of the non-Slytherin first year class trooped in together, led by Lucinda; Lucinda, Iain, and Mathias Llewellyn all waved at her before going to take a spot right by the stage, muttering together in quiet voices. Gideon and Fabian Prewett came in side by side, and Fabian broke off almost immediately to go speak to Lily at the far end of the stage. Lily beamed at his approach, and immediately began twirling her hair around her finger; that was still going on, then. Mo and Mitzy came in together as well, and waved at her before going to stand with some Hufflepuff third years. Hermione boosted herself up onto the stage, and sat beside Professor Meadowes, careful to keep her knees together to avoid flashing the whole school.

“Decent turnout,” said Professor Meadowes. She sounded pleased. “And there’s Filius.”

Hermione couldn’t make out Professor Flitwick, but she supposed he must have just come in beside Amaryllis Finch and the rest of the Charms Club; she let out a breath. “Good. I was hoping he’d be here.”

“You’ll be fine,” said Professor Meadowes. “Imad—Professor Iqbal—has nothing but praise for your dueling skills, and don’t forget I saw what happened to Abernathy Corner. You’re fast and steady. Just don’t lose your nerve in front of an audience and you’ll be fine.”

“Right,” said Hermione, doubtfully. This had always been Harry’s sort of thing, not hers. She wasn’t good at standing and speaking to people. “I don’t know.”

“You’ll be fine,” said Professor Meadowes. She clapped Hermione on the back—Hermione coughed—and stood up on the top of the stage, putting her hands on her hips. “ _RIGHT, YOU LOT, EYES FRONT_!”

The room quieted. There were Hermione noticed, no Slytherin colors here; a full half of the room was Gryffindors, and then the other half was an approximately even split between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Most of them, she thought, were Muggleborns. An odd sense of calm came over her at the realization. _This_ was what the dueling club is for, she thought. Ensuring Muggleborns wouldn’t get killed out there in the world, or attacked here at Hogwarts. She pushed herself up to her feet to stand close to, but not beside, Professor Meadowes.

“Thank you,” said Professor Meadowes, “for coming to the first meeting of Hogwarts’s new dueling club. Most of you know me, thanks to classes or after-school events, but my name is Dorcas Meadowes; I’m the Muggle Studies professor here at Hogwarts. Granger here heard that I was a secret duelist and asked whether I thought there’d be interest for this, and clearly you all have obliged.”

Soft laughter rang around the room.

“This is her show, though, so I’m just here to referee; if you’ve questions, ask her, not me.” More soft laughter erupted, this time from a handful of Ravenclaws that Hermione thought she recognized from the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. “Granger?”

“Right,” said Hermione. It came out as a squeak. She cleared her throat, and then took her wand out behind her ear to cast a silent _Sonorous._ When she was done, she snapped it back into place in her wand-holster. “Hello, everyone. Erm—I’m Hermione Granger. And—” She gestured at the end of the stage, where Remus, Alice, and Lily had gathered together, ready for action. “And I’m not the only president, actually, Remus and Lily—the Gryffindor Prefects—and Alice Crouch have all been helping me put this together. But—we figured—we figured with everything happening, with Voldemort—”

A rough gasp cast around the room.

“With Voldemort on the rise,” Hermione said, more firmly, “we all need to be able to defend ourselves. It’s not safe out there, and—as some of us know—it’s not completely safe here at Hogwarts, either. So—we started practicing on our own. Lily was the one who thought that we should turn it into a club. It’s—that is—I mean—” She took a breath. “We need to know how to fight. We need to know how to protect ourselves. That’s what this club is for. So—so we can try to protect ourselves, and each other. Wherever we are.”

Silence from the hall. Many pale or frightened faces looked back at her. Mo’s eyes were blazing.

“Right,” said Hermione. Her voice cracked a bit. “I figured, you don’t want to hear me talking the whole time. So—I thought we could have a demonstration. So you could all see what we mean. Um—does one of you want to come and—help me give an example?”

Remus, Lily, and Alice all looked at each other. Lily nudged Remus with one elbow, and whispered something to him. After a moment, Remus straightened from where he’d been leaning against one of the tables, and loped up to stand next to her on the stage, his ears going red under his hair when Sirius and James started whooping like coyotes at the sight of him. Hermione smiled at him, just a little, before backing up a few steps to stand at the far end of the stage.

“Now,” said Professor Meadowes, in a loud, clear voice from the High Table. “In most dueling clubs, there are rules about how to duel properly. How to bow, how to give your opponent due respect as a fellow wizard. The point of _this_ demonstration is to not follow those rules, as it is unlikely anyone who is out there in the world that wants to kill you will be giving you enough time to bow and take ten paces. It’s my understanding that Miss Granger and Mr. Lupin have been practicing how real fights between wizards can work, which are not simple or clean cut. It’s a bit nasty to look at, but it’s much truer to the reality that you may be facing out there. They won’t hurt each other, but I’m going to be generating a Shield Charm just in case, to ensure that no spell goes awry.”

The crowd whispered, softly. Remus caught her eye, and the corners of his mouth turned up. _All right?_ he mouthed, and Hermione shrugged.

 _Nervous_ , she mouthed back.

 _You’ll be fine,_ he said silently, and then backed up a few steps, to the edge of the tape that had been laid out on the ground. Nerves leaked out of her, slowly. Hermione drew a breath, and let it out. She’d sparred with Remus any number of times with practice. He had a tendency to favor defensive spells first, which she was fairly certain he’d picked up because _she_ was usually more aggressive at the start of a duel; if she wanted to end it quickly, which was what she wanted every time she had an actual fight on her hands and not practice with a friend, she’d slam as hard as she could against his defenses and knock him on his backside. It didn’t do well for a demonstration, was the problem.

She considered, and decided.

“Right,” said Professor Meadowes. She quirked her mouth at Hermione. “Ready, Granger?”

“Ready,” said Hermione, and settled, keeping her wand arm loose. Her wand was locked close into the wrist holster Magda had sent her for Christmas. Remus, at the far end of the arena, was tipping his head from side to side to stretch his neck.

“Ready,” he said after a moment. His wand was in his right hand.

“Right,” said Professor Meadowes. “Whenever you want to start, then.”

Hermione shook her hair back out of her eyes, and stood there. She kept her palms open, facing Remus, her arms loose and her eyes fixed on his core. Spellcasting came from the core, that’s what Harry had told her; if you could read a person’s motion, it didn’t matter what spell they were using; you’d be able to respond before they completed the motion if you knew approximately which quadrant it was going to come from. Remus had instantly ducked into a more defensive posture, clearly predicting her usual barrage, so he straightened, slowly. She could see his eyebrows rising in a question. Hermione quirked hers back at him, and waited.

Remus flicked his wand. A long, silvery whip of magic lashed out at her with a crack, something they’d stolen from the sixth and seventh year textbooks during their practice sessions. Hermione twisted her wrist, and her vine wand snapped forward into her hand, settling perfectly in her palm; she tossed a small Shield Charm out in front of her, and before the whip had fully made contact, she’d passed her wand to the other hand and cast. Fire blossomed from her wand, a massive bloom of it—not _Fiendfyre_ , she wasn’t stupid, but a burst of flame that shot down the track towards Remus, eating up the pretty dueling mat that had been laid out on the stage in its wake. She was focused, now, barely listening, but she heard a few girls scream. Fire hit water— _Aguamenti_ , she thought—and steam burst between them, which was exactly what she wanted—she swapped her wand between her hands again, deep breath in and out—

Remus shouted: “ _Bombarda!_ ”

Between them, the floor of the stage exploded. There was another set of screams from outside of their Shielded arena, boys and girls this time, but Hermione barely heard them; she had another Shield Charm up, ignoring the cuts and scrapes from broken wood; she spun her wand, pointed—a mass of shards of wood rose from the floor, sharp as daggers, and flung themselves towards Remus’s dark form, barely visible through the smoke—

Remus swore, loudly—something must have made contact—and shouted, “ _Damn it, Hermione_ —”

“ _Don’t blow things up, then_ ,” she shouted back, and she could hear him laughing, and it made _her_ laugh, too, a sudden sharp break out her throat, because she hadn’t had so much fun dueling in a _long_ time—

“ _Confringo!_ ”

She snapped her wrist again; another Shield bloomed—somewhere, she heard James shout, “ _COME ON, MOONY_ —”

She cast again. Ice spread from the tip of her wand, across the stage floor, across the blast zone, rushing like spilling mercury. Hermione spun her wand, and mist flowed out, building thick fog across the space between them—there was a surge of light and flame from beyond, and she cast without thinking, drawing up a block of ice between her and the fire that Remus had harnessed—in the far distance she heard Professor Meadowes say “ _WATCH IT, LUPIN, BLOODY HELL_ —”

Hermione closed her eyes. She took a breath, and focused, hard. Happy memories were easier to come by, these days. She exhaled, and mist left her mouth. A silver wolf blossomed from the end of her wand, and there was a rush of gasps and shouts from the crowd as it darted sideways, out from around the behind of her shield; she heard Remus slip and fall, heard him curse—

“ _Incarcerous_!” Hermione shouted, and it was over. The ropes closed tight around him. She waved her wand one last time in a silent Disarming Charm, and his wand—long, with a heavy rounded end that weighed nicely in her hand—flew to meet her. Remus swore under his breath, and knocked his head back against the ice.

“Jesus, Hermione.”

“You started it,” said Hermione, but she was grinning. Professor Flitwick was clapping so enthusiastically she was worried he’d fall off his chair as she undid her _Incarcerous_ , and held out her hand to help him up. He looked a bit pale, she thought. “You’re the one who blew the stage up.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” said Remus, and took his wand back from her. Her wolf Patronus was still circling, racing through the air in circles, clearly unsure if it had completed its task. His eyes tracked it through the air. “Is that yours?”

“Yeah.” Hermione felt herself blush—she hadn’t cast her Patronus in months—and waved her wand. It faded in a burst of silver sparks. “I figured it might distract.”

“Good thought,” he said. His voice cracked. “You reckon we can work on Patronus charms at some point?”

Hermione looked at him, thinking of Harry telling her about his Patronus lessons with Professor Lupin. She said, “Yeah, of course.”

His lips quirked.

“Right,” said Professor Meadowes. Her voice trembled just a little. “Thank you, Miss Granger, Mr. Lupin—you’ll be the ones reconstructing the stage while everyone else gets into pairs, and starts work on _Incarcerous_ , seems like a good example from that—event. Go on now, all of you, pair off—”

Remus nudged her in the elbow with his own. “Ready?”

Hermione grinned at him. “’course.”

.

.

.

_Dear Unspeakable Croaker,_

_By my count I have written you over two dozen times since my hospitalization in June and July, asking you about the events which brought me to this country and demanding assistance. I understand that I am only seventeen and probably not very threatening to you, but I am giving you due warning: if you ignore this letter like you have all the others, then I will come and find you, and you will find it highly unpleasant. _

_I await your immediate response._

_HG_

.

.

.

The next morning was clear and bright, and before the sun had fully risen, Hermione had collected a pocketful of bacon and started making her way down to the woods.

The rest of the Dueling Club had gone well. The fairly explosive—she flushed a little at how over the top it had become—example duel between her and Remus had drawn a much larger crowd than the original attendants, and that hadn’t been miniscule in the first place; she was fairly certain by the time they’d wrapped up for the evening a third of the school had been in attendance, including a teacher or two beyond Professor Meadowes and Professor Flitwick. Professor McGonagall had turned up about halfway through, and had surveyed the entire room before giving Hermione a raised eyebrow look and saying, “Well done, Granger.” She blushed again at the thought of it. All in all, she thought, it was likely they’d have a good number of returning students for their next meeting, and in the meantime, she and Lily and Remus and Alice would keep up with their own practices and developing the plans for the next official dueling club meeting. It was, she thought, rather a nice plan, and something she would actually enjoy telling Ted about at their next mind-healing session.

Hermione crossed over the edge of the Forest, into the clearing the thestrals liked to browse around in. To her surprise, a small, dark form was settled on the fallen tree-trunk. She hadn’t seen him in months, and against the snow, his dark hair and thin figure looked more like a shadow than a boy. “Regulus,” said Hermione, and stopped. Regulus shot up from his tree trunk, wand half at the ready, before he realized who she was. “I didn’t think you’d be out here this morning.”

“I thought you’d be out later,” he said, and lowered his wand. He had a wrist-holster, too, she saw. Regulus flicked his wrist to put his wand away, and sat down heavily on the tree trunk again as the thestral foal—much, much larger than he’d been back in August—trotted forward to nudge Hermione’s hands and chest with the end of his reptilian nose, making happy, soft cries like a baby bird. “I see you’re still bribing them.”

“They like it,” said Hermione simply. “And I don’t do it every day.”

“If you did,” said Regulus, “they’d be much fatter than they are.”

“You see? I don’t do it every day.” Just most days. But it wasn’t making them sick so far, and it didn’t seem to be affecting their teeth, so she was going to continue it, thank you _very_ much, Regulus Black. “Did you come out to draw them?”

“Yeah.” Regulus watched her, for a long moment. “I heard about what you said last night.”

“What?”

“The Dark Lord’s _name_.” He spat it out. “You said his _name_.”

Ah. Right. Hermione gave him a long and careful look. He didn’t seem ready to attack her for it, which was—counter to the idea of Regulus that Sirius from her world had given her, forever loyal to Voldemort and willing to kill for him. At the same time, he didn’t look pleased, either. Color flared in his cheeks that had more to do with temper than the cold. “I did,” she said after a moment. “It’s a name.”

“You’re _fucking mad_.” Regulus was white to the lips. “You want to say a thing like that in front of all those people—”

“So what if I did?” She pressed her lips together. “It’s a name, Regulus.”

“Don’t you dare be so familiar with me, _Mudblood._ ” Regulus stood up again, and shoved his notebook in his pocket. His face was scarlet with rage. “You will _never_ speak his name again, or so help me—”

“Or what?” Hermione said. Her stomach had curdled. It’d been a long while since someone had called her a Mudblood to her face and meant it. An old, familiar weight settled back on her shoulders. Exhaustion. “You’ll hurt me, _Regulus?_ Don’t forget, _you’re_ the one out here with _me_. And I promise you, whatever vile hexes your parents have taught you, I’ve seen worse.”

If possible, Regulus turned an even darker shade of scarlet. “Don’t you _dare_ speak about my parents—”

“Then don’t threaten me.”

“I’m not _threatening you_ ,” Regulus hissed through his teeth. “I’m telling you not to be an _idiot_ and draw attention to yourself—”

“I can take care of myself—”

“ _Mo can’t_ ,” Regulus snapped. “Not like you can—”

“Mo’s not in any danger—”

“If you keep saying _his name_ —” His voice dropped down to a whisper “—it’s going to be her neck on the chopping block, hers and Mitzy’s, and I don’t care what happens to you but I don’t want you getting them killed because of your stupid Gryffindor pride—”

“I—” 

“Do you think _he_ —” Regulus mouthed it, rather than speaking it aloud “—doesn’t hear things that go on inside of Hogwarts? Do you think he’ll let it continue, letting some filthy Mudblood say _his_ name? He’ll know about it by now, they’ll have told him—”

“What do you mean?”

Regulus snapped his mouth shut. He turned his face away. Hermione wiped bacon grease off her hand, and stepped forward. “Regulus,” she said. “Regulus, what do you mean, _they_?”

“I,” said Regulus, and then they both heard it. The crunch of snow through the trees. Regulus looked at her, and in that moment Hermione saw a child, not a Black, or a future Death Eater. His eyes were wide and grey and frightened. In her pocket, the Orbis Sanguis warmed. 

“Go,” said Hermione.

“I—” 

“ _Go_ , Reg.” 

He fled. The thestrals snorted as he bolted past them, but they didn’t startle. There was a flicker of a cloak, a snapping of twigs, and then he was gone, vanishing into the shadows of the Forbidden Forest like a ghost. Hermione stood up straighter. Her wand was cool and smooth as silk in her hand. 

Avery and Mulciber were standing at the edge of the forest. She’d never been this close to them before. For everything she knew about them, from _Prophet_ articles in her own time and from stories she’d heard from other Gryffindors here in this world, she’d never spoken to them. They were both seventh years; it wasn’t as though they were in the same classes. And it wasn’t as though they’d speak to a Mudblood, she thought, grimly. Regulus must not have been the only one to hear about her saying Voldemort’s name. Her palm was sweating against her wand. 

“Cold morning,” said Avery. He was tall and broad, but not like Goyle; more of a rugby player than a brute, complete with close-shaved hair and a scar through his eyebrow. His nose turned up at the end, as if he had some form of dung smeared across his philtrum. Mulciber was almost as tall, but thinner; his dirty blonde hair was thick with oil, and he had pimples all across his cheeks and chin. He was looking at her with an expression that Hermione remembered from the blurry, vicious night at the Department of Mysteries. Not because he’d been there, she didn’t think, but because it was the same feeling, the same revulsion. As if she were something to look through, and step on. She readjusted her fingers on her wand. “Out here alone, are you?”

“No,” said Hermione. It wasn’t exactly wrong. Regulus had been here, and the thestrals were here, though she wasn’t sure they’d count. Mulciber could see them, she thought. His eyes kept darting over her shoulder to the herd. Avery hadn’t noticed them. So Mulciber had seen death, but Avery hadn’t, yet. “But I was just about to go back inside for breakfast, actually, so if you’d excuse me—”

“What’s your rush, slag?” Avery bared his teeth. Hermione shifted to the side, and began to calculate. “Have somewhere to be?”

“Get out of my way,” Hermione said. Her voice shook, just slightly. She didn’t want it to, but it did. She wasn’t _scared_ of these stupid, awful, bigoted boys, she just—did not want to do this. Not right now. She took a breath. “ _Now_.”

“Or what?” Avery took a step closer. Hermione did not budge. She looked him in the eye, and she waited. “You’ll do _what_?”

She didn’t speak. Mulciber was edging to the side. To try and cut off her escape, she thought. 

“Did you hear me?” Avery took another step, and then another. He was close enough she could smell him, body odor and bad cologne. “Are you ignoring me, you Mudblood _shit_ —”

Hermione didn’t speak. She lashed out. Her spell was silent, and wicked fast; a tree behind both Avery and Mulciber disintegrated into splinters. Avery whirled. Mulciber did not. He screamed something she didn’t make out, and a jet of ferocious green light was coming right for her face; she spun her wand, and cast a Shield Charm, and the hex, whatever it was, ricocheted. It sliced right through the trunk of another tree, and it began to topple. The thestrals were screaming. Hermione swapped her wand to her left hand, and cast again, _Impedimenta, Petrificus Totalus_ , but Avery wasn’t as poor a duelist as James Potter or the other fifth years; “ _Protego_ ,” he shouted, and her own hexes rebounded; she raised her wand—

Her foot hit ice. Her knee—her bad knee, her sore knee—gave out. Hermione hit the ground with a resounding _crack_ , sliding sideways and splitting her legs in a way that almost made her scream with pain; her wand skidded out of her hand. Stars burst in front of her eyes. Snow crept into her sleeves, burning cold. Someone, Avery, was laughing. “ _You said his name, Mudblood, with your filthy mouth, can’t you do better than that_ —” Her heart was in her throat. She couldn’t see where her wand had fallen. Hermione scrabbled in the snow—her fingers touched wood—

“ _Tabe_ —” 

The hex mark on her chest _erupted._ In the same moment, there was a wild, inhuman scream. Something—something _big_ , heavy, broad—leapt over her. Hermione seized her wand, and rolled onto her back, struggling to breathe through lungs that were collapsing. The thestral foal was between her and Avery and Mulciber, his wings fully spread, flaring them in a warning. Avery had been knocked backwards into the snow; there was blood coming from his nose and mouth. Mulciber was swearing. He raised his wand. Hermione took a gasping breath, her throat tightening. “ _Don’t hurt him_ —”

“ _Sectumsempra!_ ”

The foal shrieked. Blood dashed the snow. A wide cut had opened on his shoulder, shallow but long. Hermione’s silent Knockback Jinx threw Mulciber off his feet so hard he flew across the clearing and struck a tree before sliding back down into a snowdrift. The thestral foal shrieked again, and flapped his wings, and then a vicious black shadow shot between the foal and Mulciber’s crumpled form. The lead mare reared onto her hind legs, lashing out with hooves that looked like knives. The foal was gone, away into the woods. Avery was on his feet; he raised his wand, trying to track something he couldn’t see—

“ _OI!_ _GET AWAY FROM MY THESTRALS!_ ” 

The snow crumpled in her hands. Hermione scrambled backward, two full armlengths, as Avery froze on the spot. It took her a moment to work out who it was through the snow. Hagrid’s massive bulk wedged its way through a gap between the trees. The lead mare was still on her rear hooves, kicking and screaming. Hagrid leapt between them, Avery and the mare, and waved his arms, reaching up, trying to catch at the mare’s face. “HO, NOW, HO—” 

The lead mare let out another piercing scream, and lashed out with her front feet. One of the sharp points almost caught Hagrid directly in the eye. Hermione’s scar ached. Her knee was burning. She pushed herself up onto her knees and then onto her feet, and she couldn’t stop herself; she scrambled forward and put her hands to the mare’s shoulder, and then to her withers. She couldn’t see Avery or Mulciber anymore. The mare’s milky eyes were rolling, and hot air blew like train exhaust from her thin reptilian nostrils; she threw her wings wide. Hermione yanked one of her scarves off, and tossed it over the lead mare’s neck, pulling down as hard as she could with both hands. The sharp-edged left hoof came down hard on her shoe, cutting through leather and string. The pain was a distant throb, pushed off by adrenalin and panic. Hermione pulled hard when the mare tried to jump again, and when the mare stayed with all four feet on the ground, she put her brow to the mare’s neck, her breath trembling. She stroked the mare’s shoulder. “Hey,” she said, softly, and shifted her foot away. There was blood in the snow. “Hey, it’s all right, hey? I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The mare let out great rattling breaths, hissing through her sharp teeth. She stamped, crushing the snow and the specks of blood from Hermione’s shredded shoe, spinning out with her hind end to spill excess energy. Hermione gripped the scarf tighter in both her shaking hands, and tugged again, pulling the mare’s head back to her. The mare heaved another breath, and then knocked her long nose to Hermione’s chest, right to the cursemark. Stars burst in front of Hermione’s eyes. Her hearing went fuzzy. 

“Hey.” The voice came through as if from a great distance. A heavy weight found her shoulder. Hermione almost collapsed on her bad knee. “Hey. Deep breaths, now. In an’ out.” 

It was Hagrid. Her eyes began to burn. Hermione swiped the back of her wrist over her eyes, and coughed, trying to catch her breath. Her lungs and ribs burned. “Avery—” 

“Bloody cowards,” Hagrid rumbled. He clapped his hand to her shoulder, and almost knocked her into the snow. “Gone an’ run off, but I saw ‘em, I know their faces—‘ere, let me—”

“I’m all right, check the foal, he’s hurt—”

“Don’ be daft.” Hagrid said, and her tears spilled over. “‘ere. I’ll have to carry yeh, I think, best not walk on tha’ foot—”

The mare nudged her again, in the arm this time. She slid her long nose between Hermione’s arm and her side, forcing her to lift her arm so the mare could press close. “I’m really fine, honestly—”

“Shelagh don’ think so.” Hagrid’s wide, weathered face split into a smile. “She’s taken a righ’ shine to yeh, Granger, an’ tha’s the truth.”

Hermione took another breath. _Shelagh_. A pretty name, for a deadly thing. She turned her head to the mare again, and drew her arm away to rest her brow to the thestral’s slender, bony neck. Her chest ached worse than it had in months. As if in the attack, all the pain and damage from the Death Eater’s curse back in the Time Room had been recreated and injected back into her. She took a second breath, and then a third, feeling like she was gasping. “Right. Erm. I don’t think I can walk.” 

“Righ’—” Hagrid shifted, patting Shelagh absently—his hand almost dwarfed her head—and brushed snow out of his beard. “Righ’—brace yerself, Granger—” 

He lifted her almost as gently as he would a kitten, holding her with one arm around the back of her shoulders, and the other under her knees. Her chest was constricting. She couldn’t breathe very well. She shifted—more to keep her lungs working than to fix her skirt—and studiously did not look at him. She’d avoided Hagrid for this exact reason. He was too close to her old life and who she’d been in her old world; her whole heart was twisting in her chest for more reasons than just the pain in her cursemark. She could taste something in her mouth like copper and iron. Blood, again. She swallowed it back.

“There,” said Hagrid. He let out a soft whistle, catching the thestral’s attention. “Get on wi’ yeh. Go check on your baby, g’on. She’ll be all righ’ wi’ me.” 

Shelagh, the lead mare, let out another piercing, awful cry—she flared her wings—and then turned and half-ran, half-flew back into the shadows of the Forbidden Forest. The pain was coming back into Hermione’s foot with a vengeance. She shut her eyes, and took short, sharp breaths through her nose. She couldn’t seem to get her lungs to fill completely anymore. Panic closed in dark around the edges of her vision.

“‘ere we go,” said Hagrid, and began to move. 

Hagrid’s steps equated about three or four of hers. They made rapid progress through the snow up towards the Entrance Hall, despite the drifts and the ice. A handful of students, mostly third years, gawped as they passed the greenhouses, making a direct beeline for the doors, and then, beyond, the Hospital Wing. “Oi,” Hagrid snapped, as one of them began to whisper. “Clear off and quit oglin’, yeh—” 

Her foot was beginning to throb. Hermione twisted her head to watch blood drip from the toe of her shoe down to the scattered snow. Her shoe was torn. Beyond that, she couldn’t make much out, not at the speed they were moving.

“Reckon th’ thestrals like yeh,” said Hagrid suddenly. Hermione turned back to him, blinking. Her hands were beginning to shake. _Adrenalin_ , she thought, though it was a bit vague. _I’m going into shock._ “Bin watchin’ yeh. Through th’ trees. Righ’ good wi’ ‘em, yeh are, naught seen tha’ wi’ a student before. Most are too scared to come near ‘em, I reckon. ‘Side from little Regulus Black.” 

Hermione wet her suddenly dry lips, and struggled to focus through the oncoming panic. “You know Regulus?”

“Oh, yeah.” Hagrid shifted his grip on her. “He’s a bit odd, tha’ one, but th’ thestrals like ‘im. Reckon he must not be a bad ‘un, at least.” He gave her a worried look. “Shelagh wouldn’ hurt yeh, she didn’t know—”

“No, I know.” She took another deep breath in through her nose. “It was an accident. I’ll be all right.”

“Reckon tha’s why You-Know-Who—” he dropped his voice down to a whisper “—is trainin’ em up. Thestrals. They can be dangerous, but only if yeh bait em, or—or threaten ‘em, like. But if yeh hurt ‘em, or frighten ‘em—” 

“I know.” Hermione swallowed. “It’s not her fault. I—she’s gentle with me, mostly. She was just angry and I put my foot in the wrong place.”

Hagrid nodded. The tension in his face eased behind his bushy beard. “Righ’ kind o’ yeh, seein’ them. They’re not well liked, thestrals.” 

She swallowed. Her heart was thundering in her chest. _Breathe,_ she told herself, firmly. She needed to breathe. She needed not to lose control. “I—I didn’t know you’d noticed me visiting them.” 

“Ke’leburn asked me to keep an eye on yeh.” Hagrid shifted his grip on her legs. “Told him, I did, that the thestrals ‘ere’d not hurt a soul without proper baitin’, but he asked. An’ I reckon it’s a good thing he did, or we’d not be ‘ere, now.” 

Hermione nodded. 

“Bloody cowards,” said Hagrid again, under his breath. However, Hagrid speaking under his breath was rather like being put directly in line with a bullhorn. “Gangin’ up on yeh like tha’, ruddy cowards—Dumbledore shoulda chucked ‘em out months ago—”

She thought of Regulus, darting away into the woods. Safe, she hoped. He certainly had slipped away into the trees long before Avery had gotten close enough to try and throw a hex. “I shouldn’t have been alone. They wouldn’t have come after me if I hadn’t—”

“Yeh’ve done nothin’ wrong, Granger, jus’—ruddy cowards.” He fell silent after a moment. “Yeh’ll be all righ’. Madam Pomfrey is—”

“I know.” Hermione wet her lips again. “I’ve—I’ve been to see her before.” 

“Righ’.” He looked a bit sheepish. “Forgot.”

It was odd, having Hagrid try to reassure her. She wasn’t entirely sure why it was making her feel so strange. The last time she’d had any real contact with Hagrid was seeing him run out into the dark, after Umbridge had tried to sneak up on him in his hut. _Then_ she’d been trying to fix Hagrid’s curriculum for him; now—she didn’t—she had no idea. She bit the inside of her cheek. “They protected me. I—didn’t think they would.”

“Tha’s thestrals for yeh,” Hagrid chuckled. “They’re righ’ protective. But only if they like yeh. ‘S good fer ‘em, havin’ a human they like. ‘Sides me, o’course.” 

Hermione couldn’t help it. She smiled, just a little. Her cheeks were damp. “Of course.”

“Make room!” Hagrid bellowed, and students bunched up around the Entrance Hall scattered. Hermione’s face went blistering hot when she realized that there was a gaggle of first years, including Lucinda Nakama, standing on the stairs. “Make room—”

“Hermione!” Lucinda pushed her glasses up her nose. She was so small that her head barely was level with Hagrid’s hip, let alone his waist. “Hermione, what happened—”

“I’m all right, Lucinda—” 

“I’m going to get Lily,” said Lucinda in a high-pitched voice, and darted off up the stairs, followed by Iain Strider. Hermione shut her eyes in spite of herself. Lily would go off her head if she saw Hermione’s foot. After everything that had happened to Lucinda, she’d be surprised if she weren’t given bodyguards. 

Madam Pomfrey was fussing over a few third years with feathers sprouting out of their scalps when Hagrid nudged the door open with his shoulder. The noise she let out when she saw Hermione was a bit reminiscent of a macaw having its tail feathers tugged out. Before Hagrid even put Hermione down on one of the cots, she was badgering them both with questions. Hermione’s ears had gone a bit fuzzy again. She let Hagrid explain—listening to the up-and-down of his West Country accent was soothing—and settled back onto the cot without another word. Her wand, she realized, was still gripped firmly in her right hand. 

“Righ’,” said Hagrid, after could have been moments or centuries. “I’m off t’tell Dumbledore wha’ ‘appened. Yeh’ll be all right now, Granger. Poppy’ll take care of yeh.”

“Thank you,” said Hermione. A few tears spilled over. From the pain, she told herself. “Thank you, Hagrid.”

Hagrid blinked, and flushed a color that could only be described as brick. “Nothin’ at all, yeh more’n held yer own, Granger, just—happened to be along is all. Now, I’m off. I’ll be checkin’ the thestrals, too, mind. They’ll all be riled, after a thing like tha’.” 

Hermione bit her lip. “Is the foal—”

“Tenebrus? He’s fine. Takes more’n a jinx to hurt a thestral. I’ll see to ‘im. Don’t yeh worry about him, Granger, he’ll be righ’ as rain by the time that foot’s fixed up. But I don’ want yeh goin’ out there alone again. Not with the likes of ‘em hangin’ about.” He looked down his nose at her, surprisingly stern. “Yeh come an’ find me. Righ’? I’ll go out wi’ yeh. 

She nodded. Her voice had fled far away, she found. 

“You’d best go, Hagrid, so I can see to my patient.” Madam Pomfrey made a _shoo_ gesture with both hands. “And _you_ , dear—as soon as we’ve repaired that foot, I want you on that bed and your shirt off. Don’t think I didn’t notice the way your lungs are catching. I want a look at that hexmark you’ve got.”

The curtains snapped closed around Hermione’s hospital wing bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amelia wakes to find she has been called by Moody to investigate the Diggory House, which has had its wards breached. When she reaches Ottery St. Catchpole, she finds pieces of dead bodies in the street mixed in with parts of mannequins. She uses magic to find her way to the Diggory household. Once inside, she finds another body in the living room, clearly having been tortured. A message has been painted on the wall which reads, "How's this for a headline?" She meets Moody. They agree that this must be a trap, as no alarm had ever gone off at the Ministry with previous wardbreaking murders. Moody states that Amos Diggory gave an interview with the Prophet about werewolves the previous week, which may have resulted in him being targeted despite being half-blood with no Muggleborn relations. They hear a scream from upstairs. When Amelia goes upstairs, she finds another body of a small child who has been tortured. Another message in blood on the wall of the bedroom reads "sorry about the mud stains." She is confronted by Death Eaters in masks, who harass her and then vanish. When she goes back downstairs, the Death Eaters reappear, and she and Moody attempt to fight them. One of the Death Eaters uses a woman as a human battering ram. They hear Fenrir Greyback approach. Moody orders Amelia to leave. Amelia takes the woman, who has lost an arm, and Apparates away. Moody's fate is unknown.


	13. Wolf In The Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: 
> 
> \--chronic illness / frustration with a fresh diagnosis (I have chronic illnesses and getting a new diagnosis when you didn't expect one? man, it fucking SUCKS)  
> \--more talk about hospitals  
> \--more mentions of Remus's mother / lycanthropy / illness / disability metaphors  
> \--side effects from medications (drowsiness, diarrhea)  
> \--mentions of blood supremacy / metaphors re: alt-right / conservative propaganda  
> \--misogyny  
> \--fear of terrorism / trauma surrounding wartime  
> \--mentions of privilege  
> \--mentions of protests / abuse / abuse by law enforcement  
> \--I don't quite know how to tag this but like: accusing protestors/human rights advocates as such-and-such supremacists? Like how the FBI categorize BLM activists as "black identity extremists." (The FBI is trash.)  
> \--mentions of anxiety

Bedrest, she was told. Beginning immediately. “For three days at least,” said Madam Pomfrey, when Hermione sputtered. “Your knee and foot are easy to mend, the swelling just has to be reduced, but I don’t like what’s happened with your cursemark. It looks like a relapse to me. You’ll need rest, and potions, and time to recover. Time which should  _ not  _ be sent expending magical power your body needs to heal in all your classes.”

“The Healers at St. Mungo’s said that wasn’t possible.” Hermione took a breath. Her lungs ached with it. Madam Pomfrey had given her a small dose of calming potion, to settle her nerves. It felt artificial—an odd buzzing veil of calm over what she should be feeling—but her hands, at least, had stopped trembling. “They said—I mean, they didn’t say  _ anything  _ about the potential of a—”

Her voice petered out. She put a hand to her chest. The cursemark was aching again.

Madam Pomfrey sat down hard at the end of Hermione’s cot—her still-healing foot twinged—and rested her hands to the rough-woven blanket, curling her fingers into the edge of the mattress. Then—Hermione blinked in shock—she reached up and took the wimple off her head. Her hair was a dusty brown, and braided, pinned around her head like a band. “Sorry,” said Madam Pomfrey after a moment. “I’ve been up since before dawn yesterday, and if I wear this for too long my head itches.”

“That’s all right,” said Hermione.

“It’s likely they didn’t know that it was possible,” said Madam Pomfrey. “The Healers at St. Mungo’s. When you came to us, your medical chart was a little—scant, but I could get the gist. There were various general spells that one expects from an attack like the one you endured, but there were two that stood out. The first, as I am sure you’re aware, essentially turned your insides into the equivalent of a pulverized pumpkin. That’s what left behind the cursemark on your chest. The second—which was much more complicated and something they had a great deal more difficulty with repairing—broke down the cells in your bone marrow at the molecular level. It was as if something tore them apart from the inside out.”

Hermione folded her hands in her lap. She licked her lips. “So the Skele-Gro—”

“Skele-Gro regrows bones in their entirety, marrow and all. Whatever spell they used on you, it destroyed every bone in your body from the inside out. They held their form, but barely, and the marrow was no longer generating healthy cells. In order to ensure you would survive, your entire skeleton had to be rebuilt. It’s why your knee is still so tender; breaking a limb built on Skele-Gro can result in the bone not re-growing with the same amount of strength as it would have otherwise.”

She bit her lip. Hermione rubbed at her cursemark again. “I thought physical therapy was supposed to help with that. That’s what the Healers said at St. Mungo’s.”

“It does. But it’s never going to be able to fully repair the bone. It’s inherently weaker than the other, and thus more vulnerable to renewed damage.” Madam Pomfrey rested her wimple against her lap, and smoothed her fingers over the fabric. “And even with physical therapy there may be days where you’ll need a cane, particularly as you age. This should have been made clear to you by the St. Mungo’s staff, and if it was not—”

“No, they—mentioned that I need to keep up physical therapy, and that I should—keep the cane, I just—” She swallowed. “I—suppose I didn’t—the pain hasn’t been bad enough to require the cane, even on bad days. I guess I just—didn’t consider it as something I’d need again.”

“Well, you will, once you’re out of bed. Falling on ice doesn’t do anything good for the human body, even one with a regular set of bones. Best to keep as much weight off it as you can until the potions have done their work.” Madam Pomfrey smiled thinly. Her mouth straightened out. “The cursemark’s a different story. The initial spell liquified your internal organs, and while those were repaired, it took a considerable amount of time and energy. Whatever spell was used on you out in the Forest began to undo all that work. Almost like—almost like when you unravel a sweater.”

Hermione had an abrupt and disturbing image of a stomach made out of yarn, being tugged apart with clumsy, brutish fingers.

“The spells they cast,” said Madam Pomfrey. “You said that they were mostly silent?”

“There was one I didn’t recognize, but other than that it was all basic jinxes and hexes any fifth year would know, I—” Hermione frowned. “But why would it have—”

“Magic calls to itself,” says Madam Pomfrey. “Particularly Dark magic, and  _ particularly  _ curses like this. The first time it almost killed you. It left a mark on your skin that can’t be erased. It likely left similar marks on your interior organs, even after repair. Those marks have remnants of the original curse, and should it be cast against you again, it will likely be drawn directly to your cursemark, the way it was this morning, and begin to undo the work that keeps your organs functioning properly. You’re certain you didn’t make out the full incantation?”

“No, I—” Hermione’s frown felt etched into her skin. The idea of her cursemark as a literal target, not just a battle scar, did not appeal to her in the slightest. “I only caught the first half of it, I think.  _ Tabe _ —something. He was interrupted before he could finish.”

“Well, that’s a blessing, at least.” Madam Pomfrey squeezed her good ankle, and then stood up again, settling her wimple back over her clothed head. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, dear, but that’s about the breast of it. I’m going to advise your Head of House that you should stay here until at least through the end of the week so that I can be completely sure the damage is properly repaired. Your professors will be informed and I’m sure your friends will be more than happy to bring along your assignments. You should be able to return to regular classes on Monday, but that will be  _ on sufferance _ , d’you understand? If I see an  _ iota  _ of reason to keep you here by that time—”

“I understand.”

“Good.” Madam Pomfrey’s eyes darted to the door of the hospital wing. She sighed. “I suppose I ought to let your friends in now. If you’re all right to see them?”

She didn’t particularly want to see anyone, at the moment, but if she turned them away they’d probably try to break in, and that wouldn’t help anyone. Besides, it would clear her head a bit to have to talk to people. “For a little bit.”

“Right,” said Madam Pomfrey. She searched Hermione’s face, and then sighed. “But they’ve class in fifteen minutes, and if they’re not all gone by then, I’m banning them from the hospital wing until you’re recovered. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Madam Pomfrey.”

“Good girl,” said Madam Pomfrey. She cupped Hermione’s cheek for a moment, like she had before her session with Ted, before standing up straight. “And I’ll be back with your potions in just a tick.”

Madam Pomfrey pulled the curtains shut around her bed as she went. The click of her heels snapped away down the tiled wing, towards the entrance and, likely, the crowd of Gryffindors that would have developed outside the locked door by now. Hermione rumpled the blankets in her hands, and then pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes until colors burst against the lids. She took slow, deep breaths, and counted.  _ Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight _ —

Avery and Mulciber had tried to kill her. If the thestral foal—if Tenebrus—had been one second slower, it was more than possible that whatever curse Avery had been trying to cast would have urged her cursemark into turning her interior to jelly, and she wasn’t sure she would have recovered from it a second time. It was a miracle she’d recovered the  _ first  _ time. She bit the inside of her cheek, and struggled to regulate her breathing.  _ Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen _ — If that curse was cast at her again, there was no guarantee she’d survive it.

_ That’s what war is _ , said a cold voice in her head. It was very Professor McGonagall-like.  _ What did you think it would be? Something people live through? _

It was different, she thought, knowing there was a ticking time-bomb living on her chest, patterned across her insides. Her heart and lungs were marked with it. If she cut her ribs open, she was sure the purple stain would extend below the skin right into her organs. If anyone did an autopsy on her, they’d be very surprised indeed.

_ Nine, eight, seven _ , and her hands were shaking as what sounded like a platoon of people drew nearer her cot. Hermione put her palms flat to her legs, and rubbed the sweat off her hands. She blinked the tears away.  _ Five, four, three _ , and she swiped the damp spots off her cheeks. There was no point crying about it, she told herself. It was what it was. And at least Madam Pomfrey had been honest with her.

The curtains rattled. Someone’d yanked them open. Hermione couldn’t make out who. In almost the same instant, she had an armful of Lily Evans, who’d sat down on the edge of her bed and flung her arms around her like they’d been separated for a decade. She was shaking. “Oh my god,” she said, and pulled back, and Hermione realized Lily was crying; her eyes were red-rimmed, and her nose was puffy and dribbling a bit of snot. Her hair was falling out of her high ponytail. She looked quite bleak, all things considered. “All Lucinda said was that you’d been hurt and Hagrid had to carry you into the Hospital Wing, we didn’t know what happened—”

“I’m all right—”

“You look  _ awful _ ,” said Mary, and sat down near Hermione’s feet. Mo and Mitzy were there, too; Mitzy immediately crawled up onto the bed beside Hermione and laid her cheek on Hermione’s shoulder, which Hermione blinked at. Mo stood at the head of her bed, her arms crossed close over her chest and her teeth set so hard in her lower lip her skin bleached. Lucinda peeked in through a gap in the curtains, and Iain Strider peered in over her shoulder. Alice wasn’t there, but Alice rarely ate breakfast, so that wasn’t what was odd. The strange thing was that the Marauders had come as well; all four of them, Hermione realized with a start. Sirius and James didn’t particularly like her very much, after all. Peter was white as bone. Remus, somehow, seemed whiter; his scars stood out like they were brand new. “Lucy said it looked like something to do with your foot, but if that were true you’d be right as rain already—”

“What happened?” said Mo, her voice quavering. “Hermione—”

Hermione told them, in short sentences, about the fight with Avery and Mulciber. The bit with Regulus didn’t need to be shared with anyone but Mo. It only took a few minutes. It felt very silly, recounting it. That she’d done something so stupid as  _ slip  _ when people were trying to kill her. Her hands started to shake again as she told it, and Lily took them in hers, holding them carefully and rubbing her thumb over the back of Hermione’s knuckles. The contact helped her focus. Hermione fixed her eyes on the bedspread and went through it mechanically, and by the time she’d finished James—of all people—had pulled up chairs to circle around her bedside as if she was holding court like some Tudor queen. Or Regency, she corrected herself. More Queen Charlotte than Princess Mary.

“I’m all right,” she said, once she’d finished, and they’d all settled in their seats. “Hagrid and the thestrals stopped them from doing any worse. It was stupid of me, I should have realized after what I said—”

“ _ Bastards _ ,” Lily spat. She squeezed Hermione’s hands tighter. “I’m going to  _ kill them _ —”

“They ought to be expelled,” said Lucinda, in a voice that broke. Iain Strider rubbed her back.

“What if they were under the Imperius Curse? Like Abernathy Corner?” said Mary, and Lucinda flinched. “D’you reckon whoever hexed Corner got one of them? At Slughorn’s party? Or at one of the other Quidditch matches, maybe?”

_ No,  _ she thought,  _ but I won’t be surprised if that’s what they tell Professor Dumbledore. _ Death Eaters in her world and time had used that to get out of any number of fixes. It was why Lucius Malfoy had stayed out of Azkaban in spite of all the Muggle-burning and torturing he’d done during the first war.  _ The civil war _ , she corrected herself. And with the incident with Lucinda and Abernathy Corner only a few months previous, it certainly was a relevant-enough excuse. “I dunno. Maybe.”

“Come off it,” said James suddenly. “Avery and Mulciber, under the Imperius Curse? More likely  _ they’re  _ the ones who put it on Corner in the first place, sounds just like their style—”

“You’ve changed your tune,” said Lily, a bit cooler. She didn’t look at James at all as she spoke. “I thought you already had a theory about that.”

James’s handsome face twisted. In pain, Hermione thought. Or frustration. “Merlin’s beard, Evans, could you just—”

“ _ Whatever happened _ ,” Hermione said, firmly, and James snapped his mouth closed. “I don’t know if they were under it or not. I don’t know them well enough to be able to tell. We all wrote that essay for Professor Iqbal—”

“Speak for yourself,” said Mo. Mitzy cuddled closer against Hermione’s shoulder. “We don’t start Unforgivables for at least another year.” 

“Most of us did,” said Hermione. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. Being able to tell if someone is under the Imperius Curse requires that you know them, at least a little. You need to know what the baseline is, to tell if they’re acting differently. I don’t know them at all, I wouldn’t be able to tell if they were acting out of character.”

“They weren’t,” said Peter shortly. He colored pink when they all looked at him, and then added, “I’m not wrong, am I?”

“No,” said Mary, darkly. She wrapped her arms around herself. “You’re not.”

“Well.” Lily took a breath. “We can take the lead on the second meeting of the Dueling Club if we have to, don’t worry about that. And we’re more than able to bring your homework and things, can’t we, Remus?”

Remus, who hadn’t said a word, looked up at them for just a moment before returning to studying his hands. He’d folded them between his spread knees, as if keeping them still was tantamount to his well-being. “Yeah,” he said, softly. “We can.”

Hermione bit her lip. “The Dueling Club session isn’t until next Wednesday, by then I should be—”

“Moony and Evans can handle it, Granger,” said Sirius, a bit gruffly. He stood up. “Let them. I’m going to go talk to McGonagall before classes start.”

“I’ll come with you,” said James. He looked grim. “Pete?”

Peter darted a look at Hermione, and then back at James. He took a breath. “I’ll come. If Hermione’s all right?”

Hermione nodded. Her heart ached, suddenly, for a much different reason than purple cursemarks. “I’m all right, Pete. Just—let me know what happens?”

Peter nodded. He squeezed Remus’s shoulder—Remus, who had not budged from his chair—and followed James and Sirius out the door to the hospital wing.

“We should go too, Lily,” said Mary. She gnawed on her lip. “It’s—class’ll start in a minute, and Pomfrey said—”

“I know, but—” Lily darted a look at Hermione. “I—”

“I’m really all right,” said Hermione again. She looked down at Mitzy, who was still resting quite heavily against her side, and then put her arm around Mitzy’s shoulders and gave her a little hug. Mitzy made a soft, cat-like sound, almost like something Natasha or Crookshanks would do, and wrapped her arms around Hermione’s ribs. She didn’t squeeze, or Hermione might have vomited, but she tucked her face into Hermione’s clavicle and hummed, and it was almost as comforting. “I’ll be fine. Madam Pomfrey’s here, they’re not going to come back and try and finish the job when there are teachers all around. And—maybe you can come visit at lunch, bring my homework.”

Lily, pale, her freckles standing out like ink, nodded. She looked at Lucinda. “Luce?”

Lucinda pushed her massive glasses up her nose in such a way that made Hermione think of Harry in his first year. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

“I’ll be fine.” She hugged Mitzy a little. “I just need rest. But—stay with Lily and the others, all right? Don’t go anywhere alone. And that includes you,” she added to Mo. “ _ And  _ you, Mitzy. And—both of you,” she added, to Lily and Mary. “If they came after me alone, and I’m—”

_ Muggleborn. _ She didn’t say it. It was clear enough anyway. Mary, uncharacteristically serious, nodded. “We’ll stick together,” said Mary, and pulled Iain Strider into her side, making his eyes bulge with shock. “Won’t we?”

“ _ You  _ shouldn’t be alone, either,” Remus said suddenly. His eyes fixed on her face. “If they come back, they could—”

“Like she said, Madam Pomfrey’s here,” said Lily. She gave Hermione a sideways glance. “I’m sure she’ll be all right—”

“Still—”

“Remus—”

“Right,” said Madam Pomfrey, and they all jumped. She was carrying a tray of potions that Hermione recognized just by smell; all the things she’d had to take in the hospital, or half of them anyway. The others, she presumed, were still brewing. Her stomach sank into the mattress. The side effects of the potions weren’t particularly pleasant. Sleepiness and diarrhea, which was not a good combination. “All of you, out. Miss Granger needs to rest. Besides, it’s almost time for class, you should have left five minutes ago—out— _ out _ , Miss McKinnon, I’ve seen too much of you of late anyway—”

“I’ll come back,” Mitzy said, and clambered off Hermione’s bed. “I promise—”

“Go to class, Mitzy, before you get detention—”

“I’ll bring something from the Great Hall at dinner,” said Mo, clearly not wanting to be outdone, and Hermione almost laughed. Her ribs ached, and her eyes burned.

“ _ Go _ , all of you—”

Lily, to her very great surprise, kissed the top of her head before sweeping away, Lucinda and Mary sticking to her side like burrs. Iain, Mitzy, and Mo followed after them, Mo darting glances back at Hermione as if she was afraid Hermione would vanish if she took her eyes off her. In a moment, all that was left of her court was a circle of empty chairs, and Remus still sitting in one of them, hands folded between his knees.

“Something troubling you, Mr. Lupin?” said Madam Pomfrey briskly. She waved her wand, and all the empty chairs swept back to their places around the room. “A tummy bug? Perhaps allergies? Have you fallen down the stairs again?”

Remus wet his lips. He looked to Hermione, and then to Madam Pomfrey again, folding and refolding his hands, as if he couldn’t work out where to put them. “She shouldn’t be alone,” he said again, and there was something in his tone Hermione didn’t recognize, something husky and rough. “I want to stay.”

“Remus,” Hermione said. She wished he was sitting close enough that she could reach out and squeeze his arm. He looked like he needed reassuring. “I’ll be fine, honestly—”

“I’m not leaving you alone,” he said, and the rough edge to his voice sharpened. “Please, Madam Pomfrey—”

“I don’t make exceptions, Mr. Lupin. You’re more than aware of this, you spend enough time here yourself—”

“Madam Pomfrey,” said Remus again, and Madam Pomfrey, for some reason, stopped talking. She gave him a look that Hermione did not recognize, something mixed between intrigue, confusion, and anxiety. “She shouldn’t be alone. I—please.”

Madam Pomfrey frowned. Then, after a long moment, she sighed, and put the tray of potions on Hermione’s bedside table. “Fine,” she said. “But only for today. Don’t expect me to make excuses to professors two days in a row, Mr. Lupin, you know  _ very  _ well that I dislike doing that  _ immensely _ .”

She was gone before Hermione could say a word. Remus watched her as she went back to her office, his eyes half-narrowed. When Madam Pomfrey shut her office door behind her, he let out a gusting breath, and darted a look at Hermione before folding his hands back between his knees. One of his legs started to bounce.

“I’m all right,” said Hermione. She shifted in bed, and began to tug the tray of potions off the side table to rest it on her lap. She had to move slowly; her lungs were making things more difficult than they had to be. Not being able to breathe right, she thought, sourly, did things to one’s sense of coordination. “I really am. Or I will be. I don’t need someone standing guard like I’m about to melt into a puddle.”

“Hermione—”

“I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, Remus,” she said, and refused to acknowledge that her hands were shaking. “I would have thought you knew that by now.”

“That’s not it at all, I just—” Remus glanced back at her, at the tray of potions and the way her hands shook, just a little. He stood. “I can get it—”

“It’s fine, honestly—”

“I’ve had Madam Pomfrey angry with me for trying to do too much after—being ill.” Remus’s mouth thinned out. “I wouldn’t risk it if I were you. It’s not pretty when she gets into a strop.”

Hermione scowled at him. Then, with a gusting sigh, she rested her hands on her lap. Remus circled around the bed to collect the tray, and then sat on the edge of her cot, handing the first potion to her, the one with spitting flares of orange sparks coming off the top; Healer Chatwicke had compared it to a plasma replacement therapy, though she was fairly sure there were other properties to it that Healer Chatwicke had  _ not  _ elaborated on. It tasted less like oranges and more like charcoal, but she downed it in three swallows and decided not to think about why Madam Pomfrey had these potions ready at the drop of a hat.

“Lily’s right,” said Remus, very softly. “You wouldn’t need all these if you were just dealing with a foot injury.” He didn’t look at her. Hermione didn’t look at him, either; she took the second potion off the tray, the eggplant-purple one with an aftertaste like star anise, and put the empty first cup back in its place. 

“The thestral stepped on my foot,” said Hermione. She bit her lip. “Shelagh, I mean. The lead mare of the herd, she—protected me, but when I tried to calm her down, she—she came back to ground too hard, broke a few bones. By accident. That’s all, really. It’s still sore.”

Remus gave her a raised-eyebrow look that made her cringe inside. “You’re not a very good liar, Hermione.”

She scowled at him again.

“Look.” He sighed. “I—I’m not trying to—I know you can protect yourself. I—I meant what I said, last night. You’re the best duelist I know. But nobody,” he added, as she turned her face away from him, to pretend it wasn’t burning, “should be left alone if they’re stuck in a hospital bed after being attacked. And even if you hadn’t been attacked, I—if you’re sick, I don’t think you should be alone. That’s all.”

_ Oh, god. _ She’d forgotten about his mother, for a moment. Ill, and keeping it from him until it was almost too late. And Remus himself, ill and hiding it from everyone around him. He knew more than enough about being in hospitals all alone. She couldn’t look at him. Hermione finished the third potion, and then the fourth. The fifth was the easiest one; Madam Pomfrey had flavored it with nutmeg, from the smell, and it was a frothy orange that made her think of pumpkin juice and Halloween. This was the one that caused the diarrhea, she was absolutely sure. She held the cup between her hands, and watched the steam come off the top of it, turning the mug slowly between her palms.

“Hermione?” He wet his lips. “I—didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’m sorry.” 

“No, it’s—it’s all right. I just—” 

She stopped. She hadn’t talked about this with anyone. Not even Ted, not really. Nobody in Gryffindor had asked her about her hexmark, not even Mo and Mitzy, despite their curiosity. The injury—though it couldn’t really be called that, she supposed; more a battle scar—was something that nobody was brave enough to ask her about directly. She supposed she was lucky that only Remus had remained behind, though—her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth—she wouldn’t be surprised if Lily asked soon after. She hadn’t considered telling anyone because it wasn’t any of their business. Beyond it being part of her life before, beyond the questions she couldn’t answer about when and how and why, it was  _ her  _ business; hers and no one else’s. She didn’t want pity.

_ Remus isn’t like that, _ she thought _. I know he’s not. _

Hermione turned the fifth potion between her hands again.

“It’s not—” Her tongue was leaden in her mouth. “Last summer, when I was—during the attack. I was hit with a curse that—” She touched her sternum. “Well. It—left a mark, here. A hexmark.”

Remus rested his hands on his knees. He looked at her, pale beneath his scars, and he did not look away.

“There was another that—did some damage to my bones, too, but that’s—mostly repaired, just my knee gets achy sometimes, but it’s—” She let out a breath. “It’s the first one that’s keeping me in bed. It—damaged—my insides quite badly. Made things disintegrate. Madam Pomfrey says I’m mostly all right, now, that—that I’ve mostly recovered, but one of the spells Avery used this morning caused a minor relapse. She wants me on bedrest until she’s sure I’m all right.”

Remus watched her, carefully, as she took the last potion. When she put the cup back in its place on the tray, he pushed the tray back onto the side-table, and wiped his palms on his trousers. His hair was mussed, she realized. His throat worked. He looked a bit grey, she thought. Or green. Or both. “How bad was it? The relapse?”

“Not as bad as it could have been. He couldn’t get the whole spell out. If he had I’d be worse.” She swallowed. “The first time I was in St Mungo’s for a month. I think this time my lungs got the worst of it, instead of—well, everything. I don’t feel as bad as I did the first time, anyway.” And she wasn’t spitting blood or struggling to feel her heart beating. That felt too much to say, though. “I’m sure I’ll be all right in a few days. I just need to take the potions and take the time to recover.”

Remus nodded once, shortly. He wiped his palms on his trousers again. “And—d’you reckon he knew? That it’d do that to you?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Hermione shook her head, and her hair flickered in front of her eyes. “There’s no way he  _ could  _ know, really.” After all, the Death Eater who’d hexed her with it had been in another world. “I think—I think it was just a coincidence, honestly. An unpleasant one, but—still.”

He nodded again. Remus darted a look at Madam Pomfrey’s office before reaching out, and very carefully touching the back of her wrist with two fingers. He drew away almost as soon as he made contact. “Can I help somehow?”

“With what?” She blinked at him. “I’m ill, Remus. It’s not going to go away. But unless I relapse again, it’s not going to kill me, either. I’ll recover, I just need to rest, take my potions. I’ll be all right.”

“I mean—” Remus blew his hair out of his eyes, frustrated. “I—”

He trailed off. Hermione hesitated. Then she reached out, and gripped his hand hard. Remus blinked at her, and then his fingers closed around hers, squeezing, not as tight as Lily but tightly nonetheless, like he thought if he let go then she’d float away like a child’s lost balloon. There were more scars on his wrists and hands, sneaking away up his sleeves. 

“I’m all right,” she said again. “The potions help. Most days I’m fine. I think—I think I’ll  _ be  _ fine, if—so long as nothing else causes me to relapse. It’s not—” She took a breath. “It’s not like cancer, Remus. I’ll be all right.”

His already pale face turned the same approximate color as the snow outside. The scars across the bridge of his nose, the line of his jaw, were a garish, awful red in the wake of it. He squeezed her fingers harder, and shut his eyes, just for a moment, holding her hand so tightly that his own was shaking. Then, slowly, he loosened his grip. “I know,” he said. 

“Don’t tell the others?” she said, and her voice came out small. Smaller than she’d intended. She looked at the tangle of their hands, and focused on that, instead. Remus’s index fingernail was black at the bed, as if he’d slammed it in a door. It looked painful. “Only—I don’t want to frighten them, especially the younger ones, and—I don’t want them thinking I’m going to collapse any second. I’m ill, but I’m not made of glass. Please, Remus.”

“I won’t.” He almost seemed to trip over the words. “I won’t tell them. I promise, Hermione.”

Hermione had to look up, and blink rather furiously to keep tears from coming back to her eyes. “Good,” she said. “Right. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” said Remus, his voice soft

It took her a moment to remember to let go of his hand. Hermione gripped the edges of her blanket, twisting it absently between her fingers.

“You really don’t have to stay,” she said. “I’ll be all right, Remus. You should be in class, it’s almost OWLs—”

“I’m staying here,” he said, firmly, and finally he seemed to relax. His leg stopped bouncing. He leaned back, bracing himself on his palms against the mattress, and then said, “But if you like I could read you the next chapter in our DADA textbook. Professor Iqbal said we’d be starting our unit on wards today, but I’ve been reading about them since third year, I can probably answer any questions you might have about them.”

“Don’t be pert,” Hermione sniffed. She was starting to get sleepy. One of the potions—whichever ones she’d taken—was clearly the one that made her drowsy.  _ Of course out of the half of the potions Madam Pomfrey had ready and waiting for me, the diarrhea potion and the drowsy potion were both in the batch. _ She sighed. “I’m just—I won’t be able to pay attention to any of it. The potions make me tired.”

“I can do homework,” said Remus. “Don’t worry about me. Just rest.”

Hermione frowned at him, but it felt softer this time. Less pinching at the corners of her mouth. She sighed, and then settled, her back propped against the pillows and her sore, healing foot tucked away. The drowsiness was stronger now, and pulling at her eyelids. “Remus—”

“I’m really all right, Hermione.” He hesitated, and then shifted to put one of his hands to the lump that was her ankle under the blankets, giving it a little squeeze. “Sleep.”

She was still frowning when she shut her eyes. Sleep took her almost immediately. The last thing she heard was Remus fumbling to get a book out of his schoolbag.

.

.

.

Peter came back at lunch, bearing news and a bulging bag of Hermione’s things that Remus presumed Lily had asked him to deliver. “Avery and Mulciber are suspended,” Peter said in a whisper, his eyes darting to Hermione’s face. She was still asleep, and did not seem particularly close to waking up any time soon. “While the teachers investigate.” 

“Where’s Lily?”

“With McGonagall.” Peter set Hermione’s bag beside the bed—the top of the bag unclipped, and Remus caught a glimpse of knitting needles and yarn wrapped around a half-finished scarf—and pulled another chair up close as quietly as he could. He passed over a bacon sandwich, which Remus immediately began to unwrap. “She punched Mulciber in the face when she saw him in the Great Hall.”

Remus almost choked on his mouthful of sandwich. “ _ What _ ? 

“Sirius went over to confront him when he came in from Dumbledore’s office—they were both in there all morning, with Slughorn, too—and Lily marched right past him and punched Mulciber in the nose.” He looked white around the lips, but his eyes were dancing with glee. “Called them so many names I couldn’t understand what she was even saying after a while. Y’know when she gets really angry and her Brummie accent gets godawful?”

Personally Remus was of the opinion that most English accents, particularly Midlands ones, were godawful, but he nodded anyway.

“Reckon nobody knew what she was saying by the end of it, but it sounded nasty.” Peter scrubbed his hands on his trousers, and started unwrapping his own sandwich, laden with lettuce and tomato. “She got a few good hits in before Sirius carried her away. It was  _ amazing _ .”

“Jesus Christ,” said Remus, and then when Peter blinked at him, confused, added, “Merlin’s beard.  _ Lily  _ did?” 

“Yeah.” Peter beamed. “She’ll probably have detention.” 

“She’ll  _ definitely  _ have detention.” But he doubted Lily would regret it. And Mulciber had deserved worse. Remus crammed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth, and swallowed it almost whole. The yawning pit in his stomach gaped wider, despite everything. It was the day before the full moon, and his body was screaming every which way, for food, for sleep, to run in the woods without stopping. Hermione’s scent was laced with potions and medicines, sour notes and blood; it made his anxiety crawl under his skin like ants. “Cheers for this, Pete.”

“‘Course.” Peter studied his own sandwich, and took a careful bite of it before settling it back on his lap. “Is she okay?”

“She’s been sleeping all day.” He pulled his DADA textbook back into his lap. Not that he’d really been reading it much. Once Hermione had fallen asleep the first time, he’d just wound up sitting watching her breathe. Which, when he thought about it now, sounded monumentally creepy. “She’s supposed to be here all weekend, though. Maybe longer if she’s not improved.”

“What about—” Peter’s eyes darted back and forth. He lowered his voice to something scarcely above breathing. “After the full moon?” 

“Curtains,” said Remus shortly. He pulled his eyes away from Peter’s sandwich. “Already talked to Pomfrey. It’s fine.”

“Right.” Peter frowned, but reapplied himself to his sandwich anyway, spilling a wee bit of mustard onto his fingers. He wiped it off on the inside of his cloak. “Bad timing, this.”

“Yeah,” said Remus, and did not elaborate. Hermione was asleep, he could tell that just from how she was breathing, but he did  _ not  _ like even obliquely referring to what Sirius called his  _ furry little problem _ anywhere near her. His transformation was difficult enough on its own. The thought of having to transform tomorrow night, and come to the hospital wing afterwards, while Hermione was still staying here? Was a bloody nightmare. “What’re people saying?”

“Half the school thinks Hermione’s in a coma and she’s never going to wake up.” Peter tore a third of the remainder of his sandwich off, and offered it to Remus, who took it with a grateful look. “The rest is pretty mixed about whether Avery and Mulciber were trying to kill her or only trying to scare her. Most of Gryffindor’s furious. Frank managed to stop them from starting a riot in the dungeons but I dunno if he’ll be able to keep that up forever. Everyone’s wandering around in groups in case there are other  _ Imperiused  _ students—” he scowled “—on the loose. I think they’re going to start setting up more nightly patrols, too, I saw Frank and Vance talking in the hall. And Mary heard Malachi who heard Arabella who heard Flitwick say that they’re going to have to call in the Aurors. I don’t know if that’s true, though. Arabella’s not always reliable. She’s got that thing with her hearing. ”

Remus swallowed the remainder of the sandwich with a suddenly dry mouth. Aurors coming to Hogwarts?  _ People who will know what you are _ , he thought, and then shoved the idea away. The full moon was tomorrow night. And Dumbledore had asked him to come to Hogwarts. He’d be in the hospital wing for a day or two, and then he’d be fine. Loads of students had scars. “Oh.” 

“James’s excited.” Peter folded his sandwich papers up, and chucked them into the bin beside Hermione’s hospital bed. “He was right gutted when he heard there was an Auror at Slughorn’s party and he didn’t get a chance to meet him.”

“Her,” Remus corrected absently. “It was a woman.”

“You talked to her?”

“No, but Hermione did. She mentioned it the other day.” He shrugged. “Said she seemed all right. Worried, though.”

“No wonder,” Peter said. “Didn’t you see the  _ Prophet  _ today? The Diggory family got attacked over Christmas. Two people died and one of them is still in hospital. They still don’t know who did it.”

Remus’s stomach clenched. Amos Diggory had done an interview about werewolves in the  _ Prophet _ a few weeks before that had called werewolves  _ inhumane, soulless beasts, corrupted by Dark magic regardless of form _ . He’d tossed his copy into the Common Room fire and hadn’t looked at a paper since. “Oh.” 

Peter frowned, and began to fret with his fingernails, picking at his cuticles. “My dad still thinks it’s mad for witches to try out to be Aurors. I keep telling him, witches have been cleared to be Aurors since the 1850s, but he keeps going on about it. Saying that witches ensure our family lines keep going and we shouldn’t be risking them to fight a war when they should be mothers. Says that we have to worry about the continuation of the wizarding world more than anything right now, with—people like  _ You-Know-Who  _ wandering about.”

It took him a moment, to process all of that. Remus wet his lips, carefully. “I wouldn’t say that around the girls, if I were you. They won’t appreciate it.”

Peter went a bit red, his round cheeks flushing awkwardly. “It’s not like I  _ believe  _ it, it’s stupid, I just—it’s just something my dad says and—” 

“Well, it sounds like something you’d find posted in Knockturn Alley,” Remus snapped, and then stopped. Peter was staring at his white-knuckled hands, knitting all his fingers into the crumpled fabric of his robe. He wouldn’t meet Remus’s eyes. Remus sighed. “Damn. Sorry, mate. I know your dad’s a berk, but I shouldn’t—”

“No, you’re right. It—it sounds like blood purist pamphlets.” Peter drew a breath, and let it out, shakingly. “I mean—you’ve met my dad, Moony, you know what he’s like. Ever since Jenkins was re-elected two years ago, he’s—got worse. He—”

He trailed off again, into silence. Hermione was stirring. Both of them watched her, and Remus listened, as hard as he could, until her heartbeat dropped back into steady slumber again. 

“He said there’s no way we can win,” Peter said, in the smallest whisper. He stared hard at Hermione, at her hands laying flat against the blankets. “He said—well—that Jenkins isn’t a good Minister. That—that she was too soft on the Squibs and now she’s—well. That she can’t fight You-Know-Who, he’s too strong. He said—he said the Ministry isn’t safe anymore and we should just—be ready to weather the storm when You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters finally take over.” 

The door to Pomfrey’s office opened. She gave them both a look down the length of her nose—considering at Peter, frowning at Remus—before aiming for her herbs at the far back of the hospital wing. She was muttering under her breath about fluxweed. Remus looked down at his textbook again, not taking in anything written on the page. Out of the corner of his mouth, he asked: “What do you mean, it’s not safe anymore?”

“I don’t know, he wouldn’t say, but—” Peter darted another glance at Madam Pomfrey. “He said I need to keep my head down and not say anything to anyone about—You-Know-Who. Not—make it seem like I’m—against him. Them. That—that I should be careful who my friends are.”

Remus’s hands went clammy. He wet his lips. “You mean me.”

“No! No. He doesn’t know about you, Moons.” Peter knocked his elbow into Remus’s. “Or—he knows about you, but he doesn’t  _ know.  _ I—I think he means, y’know. Sirius. And—and James. James might be pureblood, but the Potters are famous for being all for blood status equality, even for Squibs, and Sirius is—”

“—a black sheep,” said Remus, and turned the page of his textbook without looking at it. “Yeah.” 

“I don’t know what’ll happen when he hears about what happened to Hermione.” Peter went back to twisting at the fabric of his robes. “He—he was already talking about pulling me out of Hogwarts if it gets any worse, and if there are people—attacking Muggleborns at Hogwarts, then—” 

“You’re half-blood, though, Pete.” Remus knocked his elbow to Peter’s, this time. “You’re safe. Well, safer than you could be. You’re not—”

“My mum was Muggleborn,” said Peter. “Everybody knows that. And—and Dad works for the Ministry and—and you and Sirius and James are my best mates. And—I’m not like you, Remus, I’m not brave like you all are—”

“Pete—”

“I’m  _ scared _ ,” Peter said, in a horrified whisper. “And—and I know that’s not fair, I’m not anyone’s first target, but I’m scared, Remus. People are dying. I don’t—I don’t want to die. If students are getting attacked, now, I—I don’t want my dad or anyone else getting hurt because of me. And I’m a—a bloody coward, because I’m not the one who—”

He looked at Hermione laying in the hospital bed, and abruptly closed his mouth. Remus didn’t know what to say.  _ Don’t be scared  _ wasn’t right. It was stupid to tell people not to be scared when one of their friends was lying in a hospital bed. And it wasn’t like Peter was  _ wrong _ . He might not be anyone’s first target at the moment, but he was at risk. They all were.

Something—Moony—clamored inside him, clawing, screaming.  _ Mine. Pack. Family. Mine.  _ It swelled up his throat, into his lungs.  _ Mine.  _ Remus hesitated, and then gripped Peter’s shoulder hard with one hand. Peter blinked at him, his eyes a bit swimmy.

“We protect each other, Pete,” he said. His voice cracked, just a little. “It’s all we can do. We keep each other safe. Watch each other’s backs. Yeah?” 

Peter’s chin wobbled. He turned his face away, and roughly swiped the corner of his shirtcuff over his eyes. Remus did not mention it. 

“Yeah,” said Peter after a moment. Remus squeezed his shoulder again, and then let go. “Yeah. We’re mates, all of us. We protect each other.” 

“Exactly.” Remus took a breath. “I solemnly swear—”

“—that I am up to no good,” said Peter, and his mouth trembled up into a wee smile. “Thanks, Moons.”

“Nah,” said Remus, and looked back down at his textbook to give Peter time to collect himself. There was a drawing moving across the page of a witch who had been hit with the Entrail-Expelling Curse; as he watched, she vomited up her stomach, and her small intestine began to follow. He turned the page very quickly, and then darted another glance at Hermione through his hair. 

“She’ll be all right, Moons.” Peter gave him a look, his chubby face crumpled with worry. Remus looked away again. He knew, logically, that the other Marauders knew, or at least guessed, that he had feelings for Hermione, but they hadn’t brought it up much since the incident where Hermione had dragged Sirius out of the Great Hall. It felt strange and uncomfortable for Peter to refer to it so openly. Like he was some kind of water crustacean whose shell had been cracked open with a hammer. Internally, Moony clawed at his ribs.  _ Mine.  _ “If Pomfrey were really worried she’d have sent her to St. Mungo’s. You remember when Narcissa Malfoy had to go to London after that potion blew up in her face?” 

Remus nodded. He didn’t have the capacity to say anything else. 

“James and Sirius want to make up a schedule,” said Peter. He cleared his throat, and scrubbed at his eyes with his sleeve again. “So someone’s always with her and they can’t try to come after her a second time. After what she said at the dueling club, other people—that is, there might be—they ganged up on her for a reason, I mean—”

He trailed off.

“What did Lily think?” said Remus. Peter shrugged.

“She was all for it. We were planning out schedules when Avery and Mulciber came into the Hall. I think it’s the most she’s said to James in three years, honestly.”

“Hermione will hate it,” said Remus. Peter’s mouth took on a distinctly grim sort of line. 

“I don’t know if it matters. She shouldn’t be left alone. Not until we’re all sure.” He began to tick things off on his fingers. “Lily and Mary are with her at night because they’re all in the same dormitory. If she’s in Gryffindor Tower, she’ll be all right, since most of us are there the rest of the time anyway. And in classes it’s safe, we’ll be with professors. Mostly it’s at meals and in the halls that we have to worry. Or when she goes to the library, which is  _ all the time _ , because who knows who could be in the stacks? And—and Lily said she can’t go on those walks anymore, the walks to see the thestrals, ‘cause that’s where they found her this time. Oh, and the loo, but Lily or Mary will go with her if she needs those, they’re in almost all of her classes—” 

“Pete—”

“—but I don’t think it’s safe for them to be her guardians all the time because they’re Muggleborn too, aren’t they, and even though they weren’t the ones who said  _ the name _ —” He cast a look around the empty wing. “—well, it’d be easy if they were all together, weren’t they, all Muggleborns? I mean, Hermione and Lily could fight anyone if it were just one on one, or two on two, or maybe even four or five on two, but—”

“—not if it’s a crowd,” Remus said. Nobody could fight a crowd. Except maybe Dumbledore. “What did Lily say?”

“I don’t know, I was trying to talk to her about it when she saw Avery.” Peter gave Remus another little glancing look. He shuffled his hands on his lap. “...Remus?”

“Yeah?” 

Peter looked all around again. He dropped his voice. “She has a wolf Patronus, Remus.” 

Remus shut his eyes, and sighed. They’d left it alone for as long as they could, he supposed. The fact that he’d intentionally stayed out on late patrols last night to keep them from ambushing him after the dueling club meeting had helped with that, but—still. “Pete—” 

“A  _ corporeal wolf Patronus _ , Remus.” Peter wet his lips. “You reckon she’s—”

He stopped.

“No,” said Remus. “Absolutely not.” 

“But—”

“She’s not like me.” For a moment, he felt fangs pricking into his lower lip. Remus closed his eyes, and focused. It was just a phantom pain, he knew that—part of his body’s preparation for the transformation—but he could still taste blood on his tongue, after. “And she doesn’t know. Drop it, Pete. Her having a wolf Patronus doesn’t mean anything.”

“Doesn’t it?” said Peter, and his eyes were lit up with a surprising amount of stubbornness. Usually Peter gave in at the first sign of a shove back. “Patronuses are what you’re like  _ inside _ . If she’s like you—”

“She’s not like me. Not like that.”

“But—”

“ _ Peter _ ,” Remus snapped. “Will you  _ drop it? _ ”

“I—” 

On the bed, Hermione shifted. They both shut up immediately, Peter’s face going pink and then red, turning away to ensure Hermione didn’t notice. When Remus listened harder, Hermione’s heartbeat had picked up in speed. He sighed. “Go back to sleep, Hermione.”

“How can I?” Hermione mumbled, and opened one eye, blearily. Her nose crumpled up into something that was rather rabbit-like. His limbs went a bit limp with relief.  _ Awake and talking.  _ And Pomfrey was letting him stay to keep an eye on her, which was the only thing keeping him thinking and moving mostly like a boy and not like a wolf. He drew a breath in, and held it, watching her. “You two keep talking.”

“Sorry,” Peter blurted, and reached out to awkwardly pat the back of her hand where it lay on the bedspread. “We’ll shut up.”

“Too late,” she said, grouchy. She pushed herself up, slowly, and settled back against her mountain of pillows. “What were you talking about, even? You were being very secretive.”

Remus and Peter looked at each other. Then Peter, swiftly, said: “Lily punched Mulciber and now she’s probably in detention.”

Hermione’s eyes bulged out of her head. 

.

.

.

_ Dear Healer Chatwicke,  _

_ I don’t know if you remember me; my name is Hermione Granger and I was a patient in your ward for a number of weeks at the start of the summer holiday. I am writing to request any files you have on my case for my own perusal. I understand that Madam Pomfrey here in the Hogwarts hospital wing has the non-censored records of my case, but I want to have a greater understanding of what happened to me and how. Unfortunately, I have recently had a relapse regarding my cursemark due to an attack by a pureblood supremacist here at Hogwarts, so any information you can provide me that wasn’t already given to Madam Pomfrey will be valuable.  _

_ I know that you may not be able to release everything. However, I am hoping you will be able to respond to me, or at the very least forward along any medical files you can. I want to understand what has happened to my body and what I have to face going forward. I’m afraid in the last few months I have underestimated the amount of impact that each specific curse had on my body.  _

_ Thank you very much for whatever help you can give me.  _

_ Fond regards,  _

_ Hermione Granger _

.

.

.

She slept for most of the day of the attack. After Peter left at the end of lunch, Hermione chatted with Remus for a little while—not long, she couldn’t keep her eyes open again—and fell asleep for the vast majority of the afternoon. When she woke up the second time, Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey were shooing Remus away to go eat dinner. Before Professor McGonagall could even say anything, Hermione asked, “They’re still in school, then?” 

Professor McGonagall’s eyes narrowed. She straightened her robes, smoothing her hands down the front as if preparing herself for battle, before saying, “An in-school suspension, Ms. Granger. Mr. Avery and Mr. Mulciber will be restricted to remaining in the Slytherin House Common Room or dormitories until the professors  _ and  _ the Aurors have conducted a thorough investigation of the matter.”

Hermione folded her hands up into fists. “And if they’re cleared?” 

“We’ll climb on that hippogriff when we come to it,” said Professor McGonagall firmly. “Until then, the most we can do is investigate. Professor Dumbledore will announce new rules for socializing and accessibility in the castle once he has returned from his emergency meeting with the Board of Governors.” 

Which she was sure was going brilliantly. Hermione fidgeted with the hem of her blanket. 

“In any event,” said Professor McGonagall. “With luck, most of it will be sorted by the time Madam Pomfrey lets you return to classes. If not, we’ll make arrangements to ensure it won’t happen again, Miss Granger.” 

_ I told you _ , Hermione almost blurted out.  _ I told you the war was in Hogwarts _ . But she kept her mouth shut instead, and nodded. 

“Your guardian will be coming to visit tomorrow if Poppy has decided that you’re well enough.” Professor McGonagall stood, and then, to Hermione’s surprise, straightened part of the blanket out, folding it so it had a perfect creased edge. It was such a motherly gesture that Hermione’s throat closed up on her. “And I believe you’ll be having a number of other visitors over the weekend, as well. Frank Longbottom seemed to be organizing a schedule. The first years have been particularly concerned about you.”

“They saw me this morning,” said Hermione, puzzled. “They know I’m all right.”

“They’re young,” said Professor McGonagall, almost gentle. She touched the cameo at her throat, almost absently. It looked Victorian, Hermione thought, but the woman carved in ivory was wearing a pointed hat, and she kept looking back and forth as if searching for something; made for a witch, and not a Muggle, she thought. Professor McGonagall dropped her hand again, almost immediately. “Miss Nakama in particular has been very anxious. I advise that you rest up before they ambush you tomorrow.” 

She was gone before Hermione could think how to respond. 

Magda did come and visit the following day, if only for an hour. She was fussier than Hermione could ever remember seeing her, and rested her hand to Hermione’s forehead not once but twice, as if checking for a fever, before going to interrogate Madam Pomfrey about the potions and why in particular she had been brewing one of them with doxy wings instead of venom. Hermione tuned that out, and spent most of her Friday catching up on homework and reading assignments she’d not had a chance or the brain capacity to do the day before. 

It was not Peter or Remus but James who came to sit with her after dinner, to her very great astonishment. He looked more worn than usual, and his hair had clearly been neglected that day; it looked mussed because he hadn’t bothered to comb it, rather than because he was constantly attempting to make himself look more windswept. 

“What-ho, Granger,” said James; he dumped his book bag on the floor of the Hospital Wing, and tipped Madam Pomfrey a salute at the far end. Madam Pomfrey sniffed, audibly, and turned her back on him. “Feeling all right?”

“As well as I can be.” Her lungs were still stuttering and aching if she took deep breaths, but it was certainly better than yesterday. “Where’s—”

“Remus?” James cocked an eyebrow at her. “He’s not feeling all that well. We think he had a dodgy sausage, he’s been in and out of the loo all day. He told me to say hello.” 

Hermione blinked, and then remembered.  _ Full moon _ , she thought. The full moon was tonight. The night of the sixteenth of January. Her mouth grew a bit tacky. “And you didn’t?”

“I don’t eat meat, thank you very much,” said James tartly. His eyes creased into half a smile, almost hidden behind his hair as he bent, and opened his bookbag, digging through it without looking at her. “Sirius says he hopes you’re doing all right. Pete said he’d look in after breakfast tomorrow. Lily’s stuck doing detention and didn’t give me a message. And Alice wanted to tell me she’s sorry she couldn’t come in. She wanted to come visit tomorrow though.” 

“Oh.” She’d been wondering about Alice. “That’s all right. But you all really don’t have to visit so often, I’m not—”

“We want to, Granger,” said James. “Let us fuss.” 

Hermione bit her tongue on  _ you’ve never fussed over me before, James Potter.  _ She was fairly certain he’d ignore her, even if she said it. James, seemingly satisfied, tugged a copy of the day’s  _ Daily Prophet  _ out from his bookbag, folded in half and crumpled around the edges, and offered it to her. 

“Anyway,” he said. “It’s best you’re in the hospital wing for a bit, as you’ve made front page news.”

“What?” she said, and folded the  _ Prophet _ open. 

_ HOGWARTS HUSHES UP SECOND STUDENT ATTACK; AURORS SENT TO HOGWARTS WHILE DUMBLEDORE AWOL _ , read the headline. There was a photograph of Hogwarts Castle beneath it, with clouds moving across the skyline. Not taken recently, she thought. There was grass, not snow, on the hills of the grounds.

_ On 15 January this week, an unnamed Muggleborn student was viciously attacked by two Slytherin purebloods in the grounds of Hogwarts. The student, stated to be a Gryffindor fifth year by an unnamed source inside the school, survived the assault but is currently in the school hospital wing with undisclosed injuries.  _

_ At the time of this writing, the Ministry of Magic has released a statement that beginning on Saturday, 17 January 1976, a group of Aurors will be assigned to conduct an investigation into potential blood status supremacists at Hogwarts. No professor could be reached for comment.  _

_ Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, left the country shortly after the attack without providing comment on the attack, which is said to be the second violent assault upon Muggleborn students at Britain’s only magic school since the start of the school year last September.  _

_ “It shows how inept the current Ministry has become,” says Archimedes Selwyn, of the Hogwarts Board of Governors. “When there comes a time where our children cannot even be safe in school, it must be put to the Ministry and its rumor-mongering regarding the ethics and viability of pureblood values and ideals. The infighting between pureblood and Muggleborn supremacists _ —”

“ _ Muggleborn supremacists? _ ” Hermione seethed, and crumpled the paper up without finishing the article. “Who on  _ earth _ —”

“Selwyn’s a Death Eater,” said James, and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Or, my dad thinks he is. He’s not the Head of House for the Selwyn family, not officially, but he basically runs it. The only reason Lucinda’s attack didn’t make it into the papers was because Abe Corner’s mum is the editor in chief’s favorite cousin and he didn’t want to publish that it was his own family who attacked her.” 

“Eugh,” said Hermione. She eyed the  _ Prophet  _ lying on the bedspread, wondering if it was going to seep ink onto her blankets. 

“At least they haven’t named you,” said James, in a  _ buck up _ sort of voice. “They must have gotten the information straight from Selwyn, and I don’t think Dumbledore would have told him your name.”

“Yes, well,” said Hermione, thinking of  _ Witch Weekly _ . “At least there’s that.” She hesitated, and then smoothed the  _ Prophet  _ back out flat again. “They’re really bringing Aurors to Hogwarts?”

“McGonagall made the announcement at breakfast this morning.” He stretched out, crossing his legs at the ankle. Hermione frowned at the shirt he’d left untucked, but made no comment. “They’ll be here for a few weeks doing rounds and talking to all of us. She said they’d stay as long as they had to.” 

Better, she thought, than Dementors.  _ Far  _ better than Dementors. She wasn’t entirely sure how she’d even  _ react  _ to Dementors anymore; it was best for all concerned she not be exposed to one until she had a better handle on her magic and her mind. Hermione scowled at the  _ Prophet  _ article again. “ _ Muggleborn supremacists _ ,” she hissed under her breath. “What does that even  _ mean _ , Muggleborn supremacists—”

“Back in the sixties there were a lot of pureblood groups that were scared that Muggleborns and Squibs would start working together to overthrow pureblood families and forcibly integrate them with mixed-blood.” James shrugged, as if he were commenting on the weather. “Before our first year there were loads of blood status riots in London and Birmingham. Liverpool, too. Usually it was pureblood loyalists attacking Muggleborns or Squibs when they were trying to push the Wizengamot for more representation, but someone started talking about  _ Muggleborn supremacy  _ and it stuck, even if it was wrong. Now the people who talk about Muggleborn supremacy are usually anti-Muggleborn or anti-Squib.”

Something filtered across her tongue. It tasted like bile. Hermione swallowed it back. “Oh.”

“It’s not like Binns talks about any history more recent than 1890,” said James. His eyes darkened. “Mum took me to some of the Squib rights rallies when I was a kid. They had the Aurors come out and arrest most of the pro-mixed protestors.”

“Really?” The idea of a young, tiny James Potter at a Squib Rights rally couldn’t compute in her head, somehow. Especially considering that the James she’d come to know, even peripherally, over the past several months did not seem, to her, to be the sort of person whose parents would go to Squib Rights rallies. “But—”

“Mum and I got away when they kettled*, but my dad was arrested,” James said, rather proudly. “He almost lost his seat in the Wizengamot for it.” 

“Oh.” Hermione’s heart ached.  _ Harry, did you know any of this? At all? _ Shouldn’t there have been somebody alive in the world who could have told him that his grandmother stood up for Squibs and Muggleborns? “I didn’t realize.” 

“Don’t talk about it much,” said James. “Most people here know already anyway. Other than the Boneses and some of the Prewetts and Weasleys, not a lot of pureblood families have come out publicly as pro-Muggleborn or pro-mixed blood, let alone pro-Squib. I think there are some anti-mixed papers that call us the  _ Notorious Four Families _ , something like that.” He shrugged. “Mum thinks it’s funny, since she’s in her eighties now. Dad painted  _ Notorious _ on the back of her wheelchair when that came out. She rolls around the house cackling about it. It’s bloody creepy, to be honest with you. Mind you, Ada just thinks it’s funny, but then Ada’s creepy her own self.” 

Hermione’s head was spinning. She wasn’t sure she’d heard James say so many things in a row since she’d met him, unless it was about Lily. “Ada?”

“My sister,” said James, and Hermione’s hearing went fuzzy. It took her a moment to process that James was still speaking. “She’s nine, so she won’t be at Hogwarts until we’re seventh years, but—you all right there, Granger? You look a bit peaky.”

“I’m fine,” said Hermione. Her voice cracked. Her stomach was rolling in sickening knots.  _ Ada _ .  _ Ada Potter. James Potter’s sister. Little sister.  _ James had been an only child in her world. His parents had been so old, they hadn’t had any other children, that’s what  _ The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts  _ said, but here— _ here _ —

“You sure?” James frowned. “You look like you’ve seen a poltergeist.” 

“Just—dizzy, is all.” It sounded false, even to her. Hermione swallowed, and looked down at her hands, knitted as they were into the fabric of her blankets. It was like culture shock, she thought. Another part of the unknown that had dragged itself into the fore and she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”  _ That Harry could have had an aunt _ . And grandparents. And a family. Not for the first time, her guts turned hot and vile with rage.  _ A family. _ And not the Dursleys. Not losing his parents, and his grandparents. Not losing Sirius. Not losing  _ her _ .

She shoved that thought away, hard. 

“Why would you? It’s not like we’re best mates or anything.” He didn’t seem particularly aggrieved about it. “Sirius’s got a kid brother, too, but he’s here at Hogwarts. In Slytherin,” he added, and his eyebrows drew together in an implicit frown. “Anyway. I—wanted to talk to you, actually. Without Moo—Remus around, I mean. Or Pete, come to think of it.”

_ Focus, Hermione.  _ She could think through  _ James Potter has a younger sister _ later, when she had more time, and fewer people around to watch her cry over it. It’d been a while since she’d last cried about the change between worlds, but this, she thought, qualified. “Really? Why?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” James said, dryly, “but Remus worries a great deal more than he should about most things. So does Peter.”

Her lips quivered, almost in spite of her, into a half-smile. 

“Anyway.” James waved a hand. “We’ve all been talking. Me, Lily, Alice, the lads. Until Avery and Mulciber get expelled or the Aurors decide Muggleborns are safe at Hogwarts again, you shouldn’t be wandering around alone. None of the Muggleborns should. If you can be with a pureblood or halfblood when you’re not in Gryffindor Tower, it might mean people will leave you alone. At least until things ease up.”

She’d thought it’d be Lily telling her she’d be getting bodyguards, not  _ James.  _ “James—”

“Granger.” A strange look passed over James’s face. It was only because she knew Harry so well that she could read it, the lines of anxiety around his mouth. He coughed. “Look. I know you don’t like me much, and it’s not like we’ll ever be best mates or anything, but—Moony likes you. Peter likes you. Lily—” He looks away from her, just for a moment. “They’d—we’d—like to make sure you’re all right. That you’re safe. Please let us.”

“I—” Hermione stopped. She had the strongest urge to rub her hands over her face. “I don’t  _ not like  _ you, James.” 

James blinked. “Eh?” 

She’d thought Remus would have told him. Hermione swallowed the cactus that was growing up her throat. “Just—I had a friend, a very dear friend, who—who I can’t speak to anymore, and you remind me of him. I don’t dislike you, or anything. Just—” It burbled on her tongue, and the look on his face had it spilling out. “I just wish you took things more seriously, that’s all.” 

“I do take things seriously,” said James, sounding confused. 

“Do you?” Hermione sucked in air, and then put a hand to her lungs. Her body hurt, and for all her studying, suddenly all she wanted to do was sleep. Or at least be alone. “...sorry. I’m tired. I think I should go to sleep.” 

There was one thing, she thought, that Harry had definitely inherited from his father, and it was the way stubbornness hung on his face, drawing the points of his mouth down into a frown, his eyebrows locking together over his glasses. “Granger—”

“Look,” said Hermione. “I—sometimes you seem to take things seriously, but sometimes it seems like you’re more interested in—in bothering Lily or looking like you just came off a broomstick or—or calling Snape names and I really don’t think that’s helpful for anyone.”

“Snape is—”

“I don’t care what you feel about Snape, James,” Hermione snapped. “I’ve heard what you and Sirius and Peter think about Snape for months now, I don’t care about that at all.” She took a massive breath. “I’m sorry. Truly, I’m sorry if I made you think I don’t like you, because I don’t dislike you. I think—I think you’re clever, and I think you’re loyal to your friends, and I think you’re brave. I think at heart you’re a good person. But I also think you’re arrogant, and I think you’re stubborn, and I think you don’t listen when people tell you things you don’t want to hear. And—and I think if you really care about Lily, you need to stop pretending to be somebody you’re not. And you need to leave Snape well enough alone. Because right now she hates you, and I don’t think that’s what you want.”

James reared back in his seat. He blinked at her, in silence.

“I should sleep,” said Hermione. She felt brittle, somehow, as she slid down in her cot, pulling her blankets up over her shoulder to turn her back on him. “Thank you for coming to visit. You don’t have to stay. I know you’ll want to go check on Remus. See if he’s—feeling better.” 

There was a moment of silence. Then James coughed. “I hope you feel better, Granger,” he said, in a voice that cracked. The chair creaked, and then she heard footsteps. The door swung shut with a soft click. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone give that boy critique,” said Madam Pomfrey. She sounded pleased. “I shouldn’t say this, but—well done, dear.”

Hermione crammed her pillow over her face to hide her embarrassment. 

_ I shouldn’t have snapped at James. _ She’d never been very good at being ill, and she didn’t think that would be changing anytime soon even if she was stuck with this cursemark for the rest of her life, a living target on her skin. She’d snapped at James and she shouldn’t have, but she hadn’t had the patience to put up with it, how similar and different at once he was to Harry. How deeply he’d hurt Lily. How he treated Snape, with genuine hatred, the kind of viciousness that she’d only really seen in Pansy Parkinson, cackling as Hermione’s teeth grew past her jaw. The dichotomy of James bothered her. There was something contradictory at the core of him that he hadn’t shared with his son, in either world. He was a bully, and Hermione couldn’t stand bullies.

But he wasn’t  _ like  _ most bullies she’d met, before. Though, she supposed, Draco Malfoy had had friends of his own. Or cronies, rather. James had  _ friends _ . People who would genuinely do anything for him, like Remus, or Sirius. Even Peter. He was  _ good  _ to his friends, and in those moments she could see Harry in him. And then he’d hex Snape in class, and she couldn’t make those two things line up. Not even in her mind. 

_ And he has a little sister, _ she thought. 

Hermione squashed the pillow even harder over her face, and started to count backwards from thirty. When that was done, she recited the periodic table, backward and forward, and then by atomic number. It only helped a little. 

It was much later, after the sun had set and Madam Pomfrey had gone to her rooms to sleep—after “going on an evening walk,” she’d said, with a surprising amount of casualness for a hospital wing matron—when Hermione finally gave in to the knowledge that she wasn’t going to be able to sleep that night. It was the full moon, she thought, and despite everything she’d said to James, it didn’t change the fact that he and the other Marauders were probably out in the Shrieking Shack, keeping Remus company during his transformation. 

Guilt pierced her. She hadn’t been thinking much about Remus’s transformations, not really. She’d visited him in the hospital wing in the days afterward, but she hadn’t done anything more. She couldn’t think what else to do. Remus didn’t know she knew, none of the Marauders did. Maybe she’d been here long enough now to make it reasonable for her to have guessed, but—something stopped her, every time. She liked the friendship she had with Remus right now. She didn’t want to risk frightening him, or making him angry with her. And she’d trusted him in her third year, knowing and saying nothing to anyone. She could do the same thing now. 

Hermione sat up, swung her feet out of bed, and padded to the window, drawing her dressing gown over her shoulders as she went. The full moon lit the grounds up like an electric chandelier, casting silver light over the snow and the forest and the Black Lake. Everything was reflective. She couldn’t make out the Weeping Willow from here—it was around the corner from where she was, at an angle—but Madam Pomfrey had come back right before dinner. Remus and the others must be out in the Shrieking Shack by now. Moony must be roaming. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to rub warmth back into her blood.

She’d never bothered to learn how to make the Wolfsbane Potion. She’d read about it, back when she’d first realized Professor Lupin was a werewolf. The ingredients were incredibly expensive, and the potion was so time-consuming as to be almost impossible; it took almost a full month to brew properly in and of itself, was heavily reliant upon the phases of the moon in its saturation rate, required the fur and blood of the werewolf that it was meant to be calming—though in most cases the hair and blood of the witch or wizard infected with lycanthropy worked instead—and even when it was brewed correctly, it could backfire if not kept in appropriate containers. Silver flasks  _ only  _ for the Wolfsbane Potion, to help it keep its potency. She could almost remember most of the ingredients, but the brewing instructions had gone on for pages, and she hadn’t had the time to memorize it. She’d assumed, stupidly, that if she needed to learn, the book would be there for her later. And now, of course, the potion itself would not be invented for another thirteen years, let alone written down. If it was invented in this world at all. Perhaps Damocles Belby had found other things to take up his time than finding a way to relieve werewolves of their monthly suffering.

Hermione shifted, and rewrapped her dressing gown around herself, pulling her headscarf off her head and scraping her nails over her scalp. Some friend she was. She knew the secret to making his transformations easier, and yet she couldn’t remember it well enough to actually help him. It wouldn’t be as if she’d be able to  _ explain  _ knowing how to make a potion that could tame werewolves, but Remus had done a great deal for her since she’d come to this world, and been her friend besides. There had to be some way for her to repay him.

Across the wide snowy expanse between the hospital wing and the greenhouses, something stirred. For a moment, Hermione thought it was a thestral. Then it stepped further out between the trees, and she realized it was a red deer. A young stag, she thought. While it had antlers, they were small; only a few tines, and not very well grown.  _ Oh _ , Hermione thought, and twisted her hand into the fabric of her dressing gown as a dog—a great, black dog, a dog she  _ knew _ —bounced out of the forest after the stag, nipping playfully at his ankles.  _ Snuffles _ , she thought, for a moment. Then:  _ Padfoot. Sirius. And James. And— _

The wolf came next. He was large—larger than Hermione expected, much larger than a regular wolf, probably taller at the shoulder than she was at the waist—with a tufted tail and short snout, just as the books said he would have. His fur was almost exactly the color of Remus’s hair, a light blondish-brown streaked with a few strands of grey. She watched, and covered her mouth with one hand when she realized her breath was trembling. Her memories of Professor Lupin’s transformation in her third year were vague and full of terror and rage—watching Pettigrew escape, trapped behind Snape as Sirius tried to stop Professor Lupin’s transformation with words, the eerie, longing howl of a werewolf in the night at Hogwarts. That transformation, that moment, hadn’t looked anything like this, she thought. This was gentler. Or, perhaps, more ethereal. There was no real violence or fear in this. 

As she watched, the Grim skittered sideways up to the wolf with a wagging tail and a prancing sort of look to nip at his ankles. The wolf snapped back with a great clash of teeth, clearly not in the mood to play a game but not irritated enough to bite for real. He sniffed at the snow, and then lifted his head again, as if to catch a scent on the wind. 

Peter had to be there too, she thought. Her heart was racing, though she wasn’t quite sure why. She wasn’t afraid—it wasn’t sensible to be scared; after all, there was a great deal of space and a lot of glass between her and the Marauders, and it wasn’t as if Remus could smell her specifically—but there was  _ something  _ about the scene that made her palms sweat and her heartbeat rise up into her throat, as if lifted by wires. She put her hand to the glass, the sharp chill striking deep into her palms, and watched as the red deer bent his head to nudge at the wolf’s shoulder, pressing him towards Hogwarts, away from the woods.  _ Reckless _ , she thought, and bit her lip.  _ Reckless prats.  _ They weren’t supposed to come out of the Shack, let alone come anywhere near Hogwarts where  _ anyone  _ could see, and how would it be explained, a red stag walking alongside a dog and a wolf, it wasn’t natural even by magical standards, there was a clear explanation and anyone would be able to work it out—

“Go back into the woods.” It was a whisper she couldn’t stop. Hermione curled her fingers into a fist against the glass, staring hard enough to make her eyes hurt. “Go back into the woods, you idiots, you absolute fools, take him back into the forest before someone sees you—”

As if he’d heard her, the wolf—Moony—lifted his head and flicked his ears towards the castle. Hermione found she could not breathe. There was a long, taut moment where she thought that Moony might bolt for the castle. Then Sirius—Padfoot—snapped at his ankles again, and Moony’s concentration was broken. He danced away from the Grim, and then chased after it, back between the trees. Prongs gave the castle one last longing look, and then turned his back and delicately picked his way into the Forbidden Forest after them, long, delicate legs making great strides through the heavy snowfall. There was a glimmer of motion around his antlers, and Hermione realized there was something small and living settled on Prongs’s head. Wormtail.

She stood at the window for a while, after they had gone. Then—slowly—she sank down back onto her bed.  _ Reckless _ , she thought again.  _ Stupid  _ reckless boys with their stupid reckless ideas. Her hands were trembling, violently. She was sure—she was  _ sure _ —Remus wouldn’t have agreed to that if he were in his right mind. If he weren’t  _ Moony _ . People infected with lycanthropy didn’t have control when they were in their wolf forms, during the full moon. If he knew—

“It’s quite a late hour for you to be up and about, Miss Granger.”

It was Professor Dumbledore. He looked, she thought, potentially the least flamboyant she had ever seen him. His robes were only grey, and his cloak long, heavy and dark. Built to be unnoticeable, she thought. Hermione wrapped her quilted dressing gown closer around herself. “Professor, I didn’t realize—”

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself, Miss Granger, I didn’t mean to disturb you.” He drew his hood back from his face. “I have only come to acquire my usual headache remedy, Madam Pomfrey leaves it out for me on her desk. And—” He lifted a small packet, an envelope, which jittered at his touch and let out a plume of smoke. “—here it is, as usual. I meant to be here and gone, and I did not mean to wake you.”

“No, I was already awake.” And felt very odd in front of the Headmaster in her headwrap. “I was just—looking at the moon, and—”

She trailed off. The Dumbledore in her world had allowed Remus to come to Hogwarts on the condition that he lock himself in the Shrieking Shack during his transformations. If he knew that Remus and the Marauders were wandering the Forest on full moon nights, who knew what would happen? Hermione gnawed at her lip, and then said, again: “I was just looking at the moon.”

“A penchant for stargazing is usually a mark of an intelligent mind, I find.” He tucked his jittering, smoking envelope into the pocket of his cloak, and smiled, just a little, peering at her over the rims of his half-moon spectacles. “But you ought to be resting, Miss Granger. Madam Pomfrey will be highly displeased if she finds you out of bed, particularly at this hour.” 

Hermione folded her arms tighter across her chest. “Yes, Headmaster.”

“Oh, and Miss Granger—” Professor Dumbledore reached back into his pocket, and drew out an envelope. Not the envelope with his medicine, but a different one, marked with a wax seal that read  _ C _ . “I was given this by Unspeakable Croaker when I was last in London. I’m afraid that until now I have not yet had the chance to deliver it.”

Hermione gawped. Then—swiftly— she stood up from her bed and took the envelope in both hands. It was a bit crumpled, and there was what looked like a coffee stain on one corner of it, but the writing on the front was very clear.  _ Hermione Granger, Gryffindor House, Hogwarts _ . She clutched it to her chest. “Thank you, Headmaster.” 

“I would have delivered it earlier, Miss Granger, but I’m afraid many duties have been calling me away from Hogwarts more often than I would like.” He released a deep breath. “I hope you can forgive me.”

“Of course, Professor.” She folded the crumpled edges out carefully with the tips of her fingers. “Thank you for bringing it.” 

“Of course, my dear.” He gave her another long, careful look over the rims of his glasses. “Back into bed, now, before Madam Pomfrey awakens and finds that I have disturbed her only current patient. There’ll be quite enough time to read that in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” said Hermione, and with that, Professor Dumbledore turned on his heel and swept from the hospital wing. Hermione clambered back into her cot, and then—casting one look over her shoulder at Madam Pomfrey’s room—peeled the wax seal back from the letter. The light of the moon was more than clear enough to read what was scrawled across the page. 

_ Next Hogsmeade weekend. Three Broomsticks. Come alone. _

There was no signature. Hermione folded the letter up, carefully—if it could be called a letter—and tucked it and the envelope underneath her pillow. She would put it in her notebook, she thought. As soon as she made it back to Gryffindor Tower. 

She was almost asleep by the time she remembered the envelope that had remained in Dumbledore’s pocket. Somehow, she very much doubted that whatever Madam Pomfrey had left for him had been a headache remedy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *kettling may not be the correct word that would have been used in the 70s, but it's a law enforcement tactic to trap protestors. Essentially two lines of law enforcement personnel line up on each side of a protest, and then join at one side, and then the other, to fully encircle the protestors and prevent them from finding a way out. Don't ask how I know this. 
> 
> I realized the other day that I have a lot of headcanons about where everyone is from in the UK and what accents they have that I haven't thrown into the fic, so, to improve y'all's mental images: 
> 
> Hermione: Southern England / posh-ish but she gets a bit Edinburgh when she gets REAL mad because her mother was from Scotland.  
> Remus: Ceredigion Welsh accent. VERY rounded and he absolutely spoke SOLELY Welsh with his mother at home, so his accent is still quite heavy even after shifting to Hogwarts where English is his predominant language. A good example of this accent is any of the characters from Y Gwyll / Hinterland, which you can find on Netflix.  
> Mary: Northern Ireland, particularly Belfast. If you think Derry Girls, that's her accent.  
> The McKinnons: Cornish. So very, very Cornish. An example of their speech patter and styles would be Demelza Carne from Poldark.  
> Lily and Sev: Cokeworth, which is stated to be "somewhere" in the Midlands. I've picked somewhere near Birmingham, so they have a Brummie accent. Not upper-class Brummie, either, but like....poor/middle-class Brummie. Think Peaky Binders.  
> James: Scouser / Liverpool accent. The Beatles are a good example for this. This hasn't been mentioned in fic yet because he's been putting on a more posh London accent, like the one Sirius is trying to hide. This will be gone into more in-fic later on.  
> Sirius: Much like Noel Fielding, he pretends to have a poor London accent, but he's really quite posh.  
> Peter: Geordie / Newcastle, which is highly incongruous with how softly he speaks. A good example would be Lewis from Lewis. 
> 
> For more general examples of all of these accents, this is a good video: www DOT youtube DOT com/watch?v=FyyT2jmVPAk&ab_channel=Anglophenia


End file.
